Good Strong Ride

Saturday April 24th we rode 65 miles from Berryville VA.  The forecast was rain.  The trip was an hour and a half.  The meet time was 7:30AM. I woke up at 5:30, when I left home the sun was just coming up. 

Everyone agreed that it was a hard day to get out of bed.  After the really hard week before, it was hard to look forward to the ride, even though it's one of the team's favorites.

Turns out that I rode for most of the day with one of our coaches, Bill, and a pack of other riders.  He coached and encouraged me through the ride and since he's a coach he, yelled at us not to give up one the hills.  Yelling is part of coaching so it was all good.  In the end, I was faster and stronger that I'd been all season, and I didn't ride alone.  I think part of it was moving my weekday ride to Tuesday, I felt good when I started off, and part of it was eating more at the beginning of the ride.  By the second rest stop at about 40 miles, I was starting to flag - not sure if it was nerves or the result of having been pushing pretty hard up to then.  Probably both.  Anyway, by about 10 miles from the end I perked up and ended strong.  When Bill congratulated me and called me a strong rider, I felt awesome.  He (and this ride) made a difference in my confidence.

Coach Bill is wearing a yellow helmet in the middle of this picture. 

I spoke to an alum last night at a fundraiser who said that while the training for Tahoe was tough, the ride itself was great and she felt totally ready.  I hope that's the case for me too.

This week I went on a Tuesday Ride from Conte's with Velo Bella, a women's riding group, short but hilly and again, felt pretty good.

This week, we're riding up in Thurmont Maryland.  About last week's distance, 65, but I'm guessing a bit more hilly, although everyone denies that it is.

Supposed to be warm and sunny this week - for the first Saturday since we started!

Thanks to all who donated this week - GO TEAM!

Rainy with a chance of fur

Forecast for Saturday is 60 and rainy.  We're scheduled to do a metric century: 100km, or about 62 miles.  We ride rain or shine.  So it seemed a rain jacket might be in order.  The good news is that if it starts raining cats and dogs, at least the cats will like the rain jacket.

Rode 14 miles on the CCT last night, knee's been feeling better, but didn't want to test it out too much.  Next Tuesday ride will be the 20 mile Great Falls loop.

Two weeks in one...

Missed last week's post, it was a long hilly ride, 50 miles, but a beautiful one through southern Maryland.  At least it seemed hilly until this week.  54 miles of Hills (that's a capitol H), and up Sugarloaf mountain, with a wicked headwind.  That's me in the vest looking suspicious at the beginning of the ride last week.  Maybe I was just cold.  They call this one the the Hidden Amish ride, since a lot of Amish live in the area, and most people don't know it.  At least, I think that's why they call it that.

The picture of me smiling was taken at the second rest stop.  The smile is because we're only 10 miles from the end of the ride.  My mentor Lisa suggested I ride with team veterans Karen and Rob, with the thought that they might be about my speed.  We rode together the whole ride, which was terrific, and they waited for me when the hills were steep :)  That's them sitting at the school where we met after the ride.  We brought a picnic lunch (no restaurants nearby) and ate outside.  It had warmed up a bit, but you can tell from the layers that it's not exactly warm out yet.  Particularly when we start off in the morning.

The support car carries the extra layer that we shed, it's a great system, plus it shows up with food.  Not pie this time, but fig newtons and bananas.   One of my teammates snapped a photo of the Amish (see told you that's why they call the ride that) and the last pic is proof that I stretch after rides. Mostly I was getting sore already, so it made sense at the time.

Sunday after last week's ride, I went for a professional bike fitting.  So a new saddle (apparently it'll start to feel better any day now), a new stem - to make the handlebars a little closer (shoulders and arms feel much better), a seatpost to bring me in the right position with respect to the pedals and a rear cassette with bigger gears to make hill climbing a bit easier (it is, and the last two are making it much easier on my knee that started hurting last week).  Ice and ibuprofen last week, this one too.

And this week...it was hard.  Considered by on alums to be the most hills per mileage that any ride we do. Here's a picture of me on top of Sugarloaf mountain at the second rest stop. It's a terrible picture and I look like a mess.  That's the new white saddle at the bottom of the picture...pay no attention to the rider, she's 41 miles into a 54 miles ride and just glad to have climbed the mountain.  Now, I'm no whiner (who wants to ride with a whiner?) but but I'll say that when we started I could feel my Thursday night ride in my legs, at 15 miles into the headwind I was horrified that the worst hills could still be ahead, at 30 miles, my legs were really burnt out, at 38 miles I climbed Sugarloaf (needed to see if I could climb through switchbacks) part of it at 4 miles an hour, and then the last 10 miles were actually more like 13, but rolling so actually felt not too bad.  It was a relief to be done.

Today's 15 miles recovery ride was a lesson in pain, for the first 1/2 mile I couldn't sit in the saddle, I kind of perched close to it...Apparently the recovery ride helps with muscle recovery and with soreness on the second day. Had lunch with folks afterward, including my friends son Alex who's adorable and who loves black beans.

So changes coming up: This week, I ride during the week on Tuesday or Wednesday.  Thursday's not enough time to recover.  On Saturday, I'll carry more gels with me and I eat more in the first part of the ride - carry a banana in case there are no more at the first rest stop.  I ordered a foam roller for my IT band (my knee pain) and I'm icing and taking ibuprofen for the next couple of days.  Next week is a "metric century" in Northern Virginia - 62 miles.  Theoretically less hilly, apparently this is a lot of people's favorite ride.  Looking forward to it, and hoping for warm weather! 

Most importantly I hit my fundraising minimum this week!  And I'm still getting donations! Thank you!  Creeping up to $5000 and, as ever, incredibly grateful.  Here's the site if you're been meaning to donate: http://pages.teamintraining.org/nca/ambbr10/phyllisfrosst 

Go TEAM.

Rolling hills indeed

42 Miles ride. OK, 42.30 mile ride (the computer doesn't lie) yesterday in Davidsonville MD.  About 10 miles due east of the beltway at the "3 o'clock" point. I'd never been, but apparently local roadies have been riding here since bikes were invented.  Attached below my bike computer is the route cue sheet, kind of like guitar tab for riding.  Left here go so many miles, right here, pass this road, you get the idea.  Both hands on the bike is a pretty good rule to follow, so coach Ed "installed" a map holder.  The kit was composed of 1 small binder clip and about 4 inches of black electrical tape. Works pretty well :)

So rolling hills...oddly enough, I haven't ridden them in a long long time.  San Diego had a lot of big hills, this felt different.  Constantly shifting gears, every couple of minutes another hill, lots of turns.  It was active, hard to get bored.  Having missed a couple of rides, I'm still learning who rides at about my speed.  Of course, I went out too fast and after 9 miles was a little concerned at how tired I was.  I think I was also feeling the Thursday ride, which was relatively fast and only 2 days before.  I rode alone for most of the first quarter, then magically my teammates Dave and Dan showed up and rode with me for about 8 miles which made all the difference.  They've done Tahoe lots of times, and I think were on the lookout for floundering newbies.  Here's a photo from our honored teammate Ashton's dad who was supporting this ride, at a left turn where Dave is waving and I'm signaling a left turn :)  That's me on the left.  The forecast said 80 and sunny, so I wore layers that I could easily remove.  As it turned out, 55 and overcast was more accurate, and I didn't take off any layers, and wished for a while in the middle that I had a few more!

At the halfway mark, we stopped for a snack and a refuel by the water. One of the most awesome parts of these organized rides is that there's SAG support "short for Support And Guidance" so they set up food, stand at corners and generally are completely fantastic.  I had a slice of local blueberry pie, refilled my water bottle and ate a banana.  And then I felt a lot better.  

I picked out a few teammates who seemed about my speed and rode with them for the second half, which was much easier than the first.  I'm not sure if it was me getting used to the bike (this was really only my third ride on it), having some food in me, being with other riders, knowing that I was past the halfway mark or a bit more downhill roads on the course.  Which is not to say it was easy.  I'm really not sure whether I might have to make some modifications the the bike to get a few more easy gears.  We'll see, when the hill got steep, I was hurting for the low gears on my last bike...

 

Anyway, I survived, wasn't  too sore and feel much better today than I did a day after our 16 miles ride Thursday.  I think my body is starting to adjust.  Either that or everything's going numb.  Well not everything, I think I need a new saddle, which was predicted when I bought the bike :)  Oh, and I finally remembered to have someone take a picture of me after the ride!

Looks like my fundraising is at 92% - I'm almost there! Apparently amazing things happen as you increase over the minimum fundraising mark, maybe I'll get to find out...

Thanks to all of you who are making this possible.

Go team.

 

From 43 to 73 degrees in 4 days

Going riding after work in Bethesda, very excited since it's sunny and 73 right now.  Donations just hit 86% and I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel for the fundraising.  Thanks to everyone who's donated in the past few days!  Did some lunges on Tuesday night (like for 5 minutes, nothing serious) and am sore today.  Clearly more of the same is needed...ahem.