buckle up folks

This may be a long one so I can catch ya'll up a bit.

Rest week seems so long ago, but it was just last week!  The highlight of the week was my bike test, which saw me hit some power numbers that are just shy of a big goal of mine.  Nice to see the work paying off.  As usual, coach is right......patience and consistency have their rewards.

This week saw a huge work week, which had me lacking sleep, squeezing in workouts, and in general doing what I could when I could. I made sure to eat well, rest as much as I could, and made good use of my compression socks.  With a race coming up next weekend, I'm doing all I can to get rested up and keep myself from getting sick. 

Yesterday I woke up before dawn cracked to drive an hour south to ride the metric century (~62 miles) route of Tierra Bella.  I was tagging along with Molly, her husband, and a couple of their friends to get in a nice long training day.  And tackle some hills.  Canada is going to be somewhat hilly, not to mention the nice long climb into Hawi for the Hawaii HIM.  So I'm really trying to make the hills my friends.  Or at least learn to tolerate them.

I dressed in a couple of layers, and contemplated tossing on a jacket over the whole thing.  For the first hour or so I regretted not having the jacket.  And really regretted not having my gloves.  I'm trying to start overdressing for my 'easy' pace workouts in the hopes that then my body won't be quite so shocked by the hot, humid weather in Hawaii. (We fly out in just over 6 weeks! What?!?!)  I have the feeling it will still be quite a shock.  Why again do I keep signing up for these races in hot, humid climates? 

Anyway....back to the ride!  We rode for not quite an hour and then had the longest climb of the day. Molly had previously sent me the profile of the ride and it did not look like fun.  The profiles for rides always stress me out a bit, when in reality the climb wasn't too bad.  Don't get me wrong...I wasn't zooming up it, but it was definitely manageable.  (Although I did get my hand virtually slapped by coach for spiking my HR up too high too early.....and being kind of surge-y on the ride......oops.....) But I was feeling pretty good, fueling was pretty close to spot on and got better as the ride went on, and it turned into a beautiful day out there.  And I even got to see JoLynn at one of the rest stops! I had been looking for her, but there were a lot of riders so I wasn't sure we'd find each other.  So glad to chat a bit with her!

Pics once again courtesy of Molly.  Enjoy the shots of my big butt....just remember that I'm wearing both shorts and tights....and they BOTH have padding.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 I love hills.....I love hills.....repeat it till ya' believe it.

 Merrily we roll along....roll along....roll along.....

 Beautiful while it lasts...it'll turn brown soon enough.

Two bike pads I tell you!

Moooooo!

 

No, the scenery did not suck.  The sky was so amazingly blue. Guess that's one good thing about all the recent rain, it sure cleaned out the air.

Yep, definitely some climbing on that ride.

We finished up the ride with some easy spinning to flush the legs out and then went for a short transition run.  Then it was time to pack up, head home, and recover! 

I still had some hills to run before the weekend was finished today. First though, I took Bam out for a long walk at Garin.  It's kind of a 'recovery' walk, since she spends so much time sniffing and exploring that we don't really cover a lot of ground. 

Another beautiful day in the Hayward hills.

All was going along just fine until Bam disappeared down in the creek for a while.  She went around a bend and I couldn't see what mischief she was getting up to, but as soon as she came up the bank she started eating grass like it was the best thing she'd ever eaten.  And she kept eating.  And eating.  I tried to get her to stop, but she would just run off and eat some more.  Now the dilemma was whether to wait out the inevitable gagging up of the grass or try to get home without her barfing in the car.  We started heading back towards the car and she gagged a few times, but nothing would come up.  And then I started to get *really* worried.  She started to shake, didn't want to move, and in general was looking miserable.  I did eventually get her home, where she continued to look miserable.  When she started drooling excessively, I was on the verge of taking her to the emergency vet.  I started doing some quick googling to see what I could find.  Then I remembered.  When I had run out there on Tuesday I saw salamaders/newts on the trails.  And a couple years ago when we saw them out there, Bam picked one up.  And started drooling excessively. So I think this time she either bit into one, or at least swallowed more of the toxin in the secretions that cover the newt.  Luckily by the time I finished searching for how poisonous newts might be to a dog, she was feeling better.  No more shaking, settled down a bit, and seemed to continue to get a little better.   I waited a few hours to make sure she was going to be okay, then headed out to run after giving Jeff strict instructions to keep an eye on her.  By the time I finished my hill repeats, did a swim, hit the grocery store and got home she was back to her ornery self.  Whew.  Thanks for the extra stressful day munchkin.

And at that point I was wiped out.  And you probably are too after sticking with me this long!

One more quick thing....I got a new toy for my bike (Quarq power meter) that will help me objectively judge my race performance.  I had to laugh when I dropped my bike off at the Garage for them to install it, and they handed me........

I spent $$$ at my local bike shop and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.  ;)

On tap for this week.....more building of workouts, with intensity lessening towards the end of the week to get ready for the first tri of the season!  And (knock wood) the weather is supposed to be lovely for it! Wheeee! AND JoLynn will be doing her first Oly tri! Go JoLynn go!