4/20/2010

It's been a crazy couple of weeks. I've been training really hard and it's coming down the to wire. It's time for me to start tapering off a little. I've really been pushing it the last couple of weeks. I hope it pays off.

We had a nice indoor training ride and watched the 2006 Wildflower video. It was fun to watch. It seems like the event will be really great. The training session just kicked my rear end but that's a good thing. I always feel great after working really hard. 2 days later we did a moderately hilly ride with the Tahoe team and my legs felt it a bit but that didn't really hold me back.

The training session in the pool was excellent. Tim put us through the ringer so to speak. He wanted us to work on the start of the race so he had 4 of us in one lane struggling for room and he had a kick board and was making waves and splashing us in the face the whole time. We worked on looking up when we swim in order to stay on line so we don't stray too far off course and we also worked at swimming with our head completely out of the water just in case we choke or something that we'll be able to keep swimming and not get run over. Overall some good learning experiences.

I was happy with my running last week. I did 5 miles of a hill repeater. I found a hill that's a half mile long. It goes from the towpath parking lot on Rockside and up the hill to Independence. I checked it out on Map My Ride and there are sections that are a 20% grade. I was pleasantly surprised that I was not only able to run up it once but 5 times. Now I understand that running downhill is SOOOO much easier than up (I've had issues with that in the past). My knees held up fabulously on the run and have been doing well in general. Now the only issue is they started to burn a little last Thursday while I was running to work so I have to be careful, make sure to stretch and ice my shins after I run and I should be fine. I've been resting a little and will probably head to the gym in the next week or so and work a bit on the elliptical the keep my legs in shape and avoid all the pounding. I am so ready to get there and get this done. I know I have another week and a half but I feel good. My legs are starting to recover from the extreme activity that I've put them through over the last week.

On Sunday I went for a group ride with the Tahoe team. The coaches have been extremely gracious and allowing us to ride along with them. My legs were so tired to start the ride. It was raining and windy and cold. None of that really bothered me though. I just wanted to keep the legs pumping. I have issues with my left thigh if I don't remember to warm it up and stretch it really good before we start and of course I forgot. So I had some problems until about mile 25 once I was really "warmed" up. Poor Jan had a flat tire. I'm not surprised. We hit some pretty rough roads. I'm surprised I didn't have a flat. We had some issues in getting the tire changed but managed well enough. It's better that he had the flat yesterday than at Wildflower. My legs were really tired when we finished but I still felt like I could run afterward. I wish I could've run with Jan but I had to go meet with my parent's then head to my brother's for my niece's birthday. My feet were frozen by the time we finished and I actually wore my shoe covers.
I took yesterday off as a rest day. (still did some running to work, lol always late).

Yesterday we dropped of our bikes to be shipped out today. Kadence is now on her way to California. Of course I had issues. We have to remove the pedals from our bikes and my left pedal just refused to come off. We tried everything. We ended up partially stripping the bolt on there and we tried removing it with the allen wrench but it wouldn't budge. I think we even partially stripped the wrench itself. Tim said he was going to stop by this morning and see if he could get it off after we let some lube soak in. If not, she's going with one pedal. I rode to work this morning and I can't believe the difference between bikes. It felt so weird to ride my old bike. As usual I felt great when i got in to work this morning. I love to ride :)