Brick day!

Today was my biggest brick workout of the year so far...4 hr ride followed by a 30 min run. I recruited 4 of my cycling teammates to join me for part of the ride and told them about my little obsession with the heart rate monitor (courtesy of Mark Allen...picture stolen from the internet below). So that meant I was taking it easy on the uphills and hammering the downhills for the most part. We decided to hit the hills today, heading toward Estes Park and then adding in lots of extra hills on the way home. My legs felt fantastic today! It was one of those days when you are riding and you are just so happy to be riding. The weather and surroundings were beautiful. The Big Thompson river finally melted enough to see and hear the rushing river which I haven't seen since last fall. I was pretty happy with my power output for a 4 hour ride...a new record for mean watts for that time period without depleting myself or getting my HR over 146. The short run afterwards wasn't half bad either...very slow (cuz my HR kept drifting up), but comfortable. I could have kept on going...kind of like the Energizer bunny ; ). Me thinks Mark knows what he's doing : ).

Frostbite TT

This weekend was my first opportunity to test out my fitness on the bike and to reexperience the pleasure of lactic acid...a substance that has been completely foreign during bike training since starting the MarkAllenOnline training program this season. I anticipated a less than optimal race, as I figured I would need to have done some threshold work in order to do well in the race again against the clock. Much to my surprise, I had a fantastic race! I have iliac steal syndrome, so I haven't done a TT in the last 3 years without my left leg totally malfunctioning at some point during the race (if I'm unlucky, at the beginning...If I'm lucky...toward the end). I couldn't believe it, but my left leg worked the whole time! It was awesome. I raced as hard as I possibly could and loved it. I was gasping for air and my max HR was a mere 162, even loaded with ultra-caffeinated Costa Rican coffee. I guess this "building the aerobic engine" stuff works : ). I ended up finishing in 32:06 for a 14-mi TT, giving me 1st place in the W35+ category. The cool part was I was only :57 and 2:07 slower than 2 top NRC racers, Georgia Gould and Meredith Miller. I would have expected a 3+ minute gap for those two for this distance, so I'm feeling pretty positive about the upcoming bike racing and triathlon season : ).

Training Camp!!!

Had a fantastic week of training! It started out with my 5-year PR for a 5K race last Friday...21:15, and 1st Master's female. It was the Leap Day 5K in Fort Collins and the prizes were some really great custom pottery. A great race with fantastic weather! The next day I was off to Austin for my annual cycling training camp with Team Rio Grande! This week was my top training week of the year...and maybe 2 years...since I'll be exceeding 20 hrs of training in 7 days! The first night in Austin was amazing...I arrived via plane ahead of the gang on the Rio van who traveled via road, and met up with our amazing sponsor, Pat McGaughran, owner of the Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant. Turns out he has a new restaurant in Austin (see group pic), and it's as good or better than the Colorado versions. It comes equipped with some top shelf tequilas : ). We went out for some great Italian cuisine in downtown Austin and then got VIP passes to a fantastic concert at Stubb's BBQ...a hotspot for great entertainment in Austin. The music was great! and the highlight of the night was meeting and chatting with the one and only Lance Armstrong. I asked him if he'll ever do IM Hawaii, and he rapidly said..."No way!" but then qualified it with "maybe someday"...i.e. "Yes!" It was a great evening. The rest of the Rio cycling crew arrived late at 12:30am. We had a great 4 hr ride in Austin the first day, with some fun climbing and good company. After the ride, I went to the most amazing pool ever...Barton Springs pool in Austin. It was the coolest natural bottom, ultra long pool ever! I was so glad I took the time to check it out and get in a little swim. The next day the weather turned nasty and we headed to the gym to pump some iron and for me to remind myself how to run a bit. I also had the pleasure of running along the river in the high winds later that day while most of the boys headed out for a 3-hr ride. I was glad I skipped that ride as we had an epic ride the next day to Marble Falls. The pic is our set of bikes at the mini-mart about 60 miles into our long ride. What a great day! I can't remember ever feeling so good from miles 70-100 of a long ride. I just love the Austin terrain...lots of short steep hills! Next day we got out again, but my legs didn't feel quite so good! Max HR 134 on a nice little climb that I was going as hard as I could on and got dropped. I think my AHR was only 110 on that ride, but it didn't seem remotely easy!! That was it for me...back to Colorado to get back to work. I did manage to get in a 1hr 15 min run on the trails and felt fantastic despite the long week of training. I'm loving the MarkAllenOnline training program. It seems to have prepared me well for this epic week of training : ). With my little deficit of swimming, I have been piling on the swim yardage the last 2 days to semi make up for not swimming much last week. Tomorrow...Frostbite Time Trial...to be continued.