Week 15: Finding my Pace

It's OK to alter your workouts according to your schedule, the weather, how you feel, etc. For some reason, I decided to ride my bike indoors every single day this week. Too cold out to swim, running late to the track workout, or just too lazy to leave the house. You would think that with all of the riding I did during the week, I would be a superstar on the bike by Saturday, but that's not how it works. We had a 55 mile bike ride (Walnut Creek-Danville-Dublin-Castro Valley-Oakland-Moraga-Lafayette-Walnut Creek) followed by a 60 minute run.

The bike ride was beautiful. Nothing makes me appreciate living in the Bay Area more than riding my bike. But in order to witness the beautiful lush green rolling hills, you must climb them. And that's where riding my bike indoors every day last week didn't help me. My legs felt fatigued and I had to work really hard to keep up with Jess and LuLu. I was determined not to get dropped. The other thing I like about riding my bike in the East Bay is running into friends. LuLu, Jess, Nick and I spotted Matt and Claire riding in the opposite direction on Redwood. They turned around and rode with us for awhile. It's just like Cheers!

Once we got to the top of Pinehurst, we started our decent back to Walnut Creek. I actually felt really great about this part of the ride. Two summers ago I slid out on Pinehurst due to a combination of downhill, corning, and too much speed. I went down so hard that I thought I broke my collar bone. I had to pull out of a race 2 weeks later and went to physical thereapy for months. Needless to say, decending on Pinehurst has never been the same since. Saturday was much btter. I didn't brake nearly as much in the corners, but still felt in control of the bike. Best of all, I didn't get dropped :)

Once we returned to Walnut Creek and dismounted our bikes we did a shoe change, had a quick bite to eat and set our Garmins to Run. The workout wasn't supposed to be a brick (workout with more than one discipline following right after another), but we didn't have much of a choice. "Now or Never" is what we said. Both Lulu and Jess told some really good stories, so it helped to pass the time. It was a great but exhausting day. I went to bed at 8:30 pm

Condition: Exhausted