I sat down at my computer in a total funk; this week has been enormously stressful. Not that I'm asking for sympathy -- I know you guys have plenty of stress in your life too -- but it's funny how perspective can change in a split second by something as random as photos from your hill-repeat session.
To back up, some of my stress is actually fantastic -- I just landed J&J as a client (whoo hoo!) and we kick off the project tomorrow. But that comes on top of a client deliverable due today, and preparing for departure Saturday morning for Oxford UK for a week of 7 am to 10 pm work. Then one day at home followed by 4.5 days in Illinois.
On top of feeling overwhelmed while preparing to head out of town for two weeks, I'm totally PMSy (sorry guys)... ladies, you know that feeling when if you don't hear from someone you think they hate you? And tons of small things get blown out of proportion? Your head knows you're being irrational but your emotions say otherwise. Argh... the curse of womanhood. Today I was thinking about triathlon and my perfectionist curse has kicked in over the past couple days -- I was feeling like I'd bitten off more than I could chew, that I wasn't cut out for this, that I should stick with what I'm good at, blah blah blah.
And then I just uploaded these pics tonight of my hill repeat session yesterday. It was ridiculously hard -- my HR was red-lining -- but I did it... and then headed home for another 45 minutes on the trainer with some extra sprints. My legs actually felt ok. Not great, but good enough to power through. These are the workouts that will get me where I want to be, and I felt good about it. We'll call this a "confidence-building ride."
So here, check these out. See that curvy road at the bottom of the photo? That's where I'm headed... that's halfway up. Ride with me:
Continuing down that road... (and ooh, I tiny glimpse of sun before it starts pouring again!)
See those houses straight ahead in the photo above, and the green point off in the distance? That's where we're headed... to this hill below, which is about 10% grade with a few reprieves:
Ready, set... go! Stand up and hammer. Holy crap. Has it been a minute yet? No, only 40 seconds... I gotta sit down, my HR is red-lining... 2 seconds sitting... back up... hammer... slower hammer... has it been 2 minutes yet? Nope, barely 1... keep going... I hate my coach (not really :-))... done! Phew. Hard stop. Glance to my right... ahh (pant pant)... lovely:
Ok, let's do that again... one more time. But for the rest of them I'm headed closer to home. Let's backtrack to that road we were just on earlier...
4 times up this puppy. Each time I felt stronger, surprisingly. Went a tad slower but I stopped needing to sit down at the halfway mark. I actually felt... kinda good. Huh. Oh, here's the elevation... I don't understand when I ride up stuff like this and my Garmin averages it out to 1% grade, but if I do a point-to-point measurement in mapmyride.com it seems to be more accurate (although there is actually no flat/yellow on this road):
Yeah, that's a lot of dark purple and black... parts of this are 20% grade. Maybe you hard-core athletes think this is a piece of cake, but this was HARD for me and I was so excited to rock up this 4x even if I wasn't exactly a speed demon.
Last pic at the rest stop before heading home and beating the rain:
As I looked at these pics I was about to say, "I love riding here." And paused... and then I said it. Huh?? Where did that come from? It's been 50 degrees and raining for days. It's lovely, yes, but the hills are freaking hard, and it's cold, and I miss riding on hot flat ground in Texas (sorta). But from somewhere inside this grumpy, crabby, PMSy, overwhelmed, athleticly frustrated girl, out popped: "I love riding here." Ok then. The confidence-building ride worked its magic.
Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can suck it up and deal with being mediocre on my way to being good. This is hard for someone with perfectionist tendencies; I've avoided putting myself in the position for years. I have no idea why I've become so hell-bent on transforming myself into an athlete -- I've certainly never been one in my entire life -- and I'm just hitting some bumps. Today was a real low point... mentally I almost chucked it today.
But that would be pretty dumb. I'm not going to give up. I'm learning a lot about myself, and I strongly suspect I'll end up transforming much more than my body when I've finished this season. I think I've just hit that low point right before things start getting good, and it's time to just put my head down and power through.This stuff is better than therapy. :-)
So I'll be packing the TRX and fitting in some training where I can. And I'm looking forward to 3 weeks of freakin' hard work before Wildflower on May 1. Bring it.
Thanks for the pix- I KNOW that area and I always want to be riding it when we visit! Four times anything is tough-builds that mental stamina for racing something hard! You SHOULD be proud of yourself!
Can't wait to see SF in June for the Sharkfest swim...should be nice and green with all the rain you have been getting!
Posted by: cheryl | 03/25/2011 at 06:21 AM