Well, sometimes it has to shut up. Marky recently had me doing 15×100 on 2 min. That is good for me — I had often done on 2:05 or occasionally on 2 min. But never for that many repeats. But I trust him (a requirement for success with a coach) and so I didn’t mention any fear, climbed in the pool, and got it done.

Well this time it was 15×100 on 1:55. I saw that and part of me doubted. But Marky said it, so I got in the pool and that was the goal. So what did i do? Well, came in on 1:47-1:51 for all of them and hit each one. Because that faith in me helped me try pushing that envelop, and it was something I could do. And it felt DAMN GOOD.

Happy? I am

It was my first time trying to hold a set and hard power number for that long. It was tough! But finally I got to the part with instructions “for the last mile try to tear the cranks off the bike” and I begged and pleaded with my legs — “Just one more mile, and then I promise I’ll back off, and shift, and you can have a nice easy spinny loop before we head off to work” and they did it, just for me!

I cruised for a bit, and started downshifting. KAPABLAM! The rear shifter exploded in my hand. Well, it hadn’t felt like it was shifting well during the test, so I was mostly just thankful it waited til after my 15 miles to poop out on me. But it did mean that I couldn’t shift, and of course with the lack of tension on the cable the rear derailleur moved to “hardest to pedal” gear. And then the front was like well, no, I don’t want to make your life easy, so if you shift to the little ring I’m going to not catch.

So after all the promises I made to the legs, and how they held up their end of the bargin, I didn’t get to give them the nice easy spinny part they love. And instead had to have a very low cadence and make it back to the car that way.

But at least I suffered for the prescribed 15 miles first. And legs, I know I don’t always keep my promises, but I was trying — really! I’ll make it up to you. How about a swim this evening?

Saturday Mike, the mountain bikes and I all climbed our way up the same basic route we did back in December. It was still beautiful and fun. We went a bit farther this time, and made it all the way to the summit of the fire road. And again froze our asses off on the way down. It took forever in warm water in the shower to get my toenails not blue. And I might never listen to Mike about when to bring my cold-weather gloves again. But about 22 miles and 6000 ft of climbing kicked off the weekend right.

Sunday started with a pretty relaxed 30 mile loop on bike paths, basically flat (just under 1000ft of climbing). Then some shopping for a dress for one of my sister’s wedding in a couple weeks. A fun dinner, and then a nice evening 4.5 mi run.

Monday no alarm clocks were allowed. And we relaxed in the morning. But got out the door barely before noon for a great climby loop chasing Mike or sometimes riding with him — 71 miles and a bit under 10,000ft of climbing. Knowing it was going to be a long day of climbing, I just spun up pretty much everything, relaxing and enjoying the gorgeous views from the ridge road and seeing down the valleys. I loved the miles and miles with no cars, since about 20 of the miles each way were on roads that are currently closed to cars (ok currently closed — but lots of bikers still play up there). And the french dip sandwich at the turn around, complete with a fire to dry off and thaw a bit from that last cloud, also rocked. Oh yeah, and on the final stretch, I got a bit playful and I think Mike got tired of me finding sprint points I just knew I could make it home from there!

And thanks to Marky, a nice little run followed the ride. Just 20 minutes, 2.2 miles, but there weren’t really any completely flat parts.

So I earned my spaghetti!

Oh and the “song” stuck in my head lately? “It’s too cold for holes in my arse… it’s too cold for holes!!” (inspired by a pair of bike shorts that were torn on a fence).

So thanks to the guy in the common area at work who opened the door for me since my badge was in the car, and then had jumper cables and helped me in the rain. Wooo for helpful people!

And then I heard that we had a couple tornados today! Yes, in Southern CA! Craziness! So there, Marky — it was crazy here, too.

But it did mean the pool was closed, so no swim this evening. Just a crazy rainy drive home.

After the ultra to kick of the year, it feels odd to have my “long run” day be 8 miles. But the focus this year is on shorter races, so even the long run is shorter, and at a better pace. Today I threw in some intervals, doing a mile hard, 1/2 mile easy, and repeating that 4 times. Then (because Mike was about to catch me and because a certain hill and I fight over who gets to make me hurt more) I added a HARD 1/4 mile on a bit of an uphill to finish off the mainset.

And about that spinny bike ride I did last night? Well it felt awesome — my focus was on a higher cadence to let the legs spin a bit more, but even with keeping the highest cadence I have in a while, the winds made for a bit harder of a ride than I had pictured. Oh and I’m bad at the high cadence game — you’d think that means I’d go into easier gears even for slight hills, but often for me it really means I just push a bazilliondy watts up the hills to keep the cadence up. I can be soooo lazy about shifting.

So my legs are a bit sore, and I can feel it walking today. Man I love that feeling. I wasn’t really getting it the same with the ultra format of training. And it means time to see if my massage girl Brianne has time for me on Friday! Because only this kind of leg feeling makes a massage reward even sweeter.

And today I emailed the honeymoon race and gave them an update on what my name will be, which was fun.

At least we already have a somewhat “theme” (basically how our invites and favors and such will all tie together and to us). But yet so much more to do!

I rode this morning — my 20.5 mile out and back that is basically flat. And it was a bit windy, but nothing super crazy. I just had no power. None. Felt like I was running on empty or something. Even 100 watts felt unholdable. Not a great feeling, but I did the whole ride, home, and off to work.

Talking to Mike just now he reminded me that I haven’t been sleeping well at all — or have been working til crazy late for some unknown reason. Oh yeah. I always forget that sleep is a part of performance. But today’s looooow power numbers for similar perceived exertion to other rides sure reinforced it! Maybe next time I’ll remember.