Training rules.

Wow! It’s been soooo nice to be able to be consistent with my training this week. I feel so much more relaxed and satisfied. When I don’t get to successfully push my mind AND body to the limit on a regular basis, I feel anxious and lost. We had an interesting weather pattern this week… a few 70 degree days (my legs actually don’t glow in the dark anymore!), followed by a snow day… Boulder got 7-10 inches of snow. Just when I thought I *might* get to ride singletrack, Mother Nature showed me who was boss. That’s alright – it means the mountains will be gorgeous this summer, and we’ll have a green, fragrant spring.

I doubt that training for one week will salvage my fitness before the race next week, but it certainly won’t hurt. I’ve been pushing myself pretty hard and hoping it’ll pay off. We leave on Tuesday for Arkansas in the NEW ERGON SPRINTER! It is getting wrapped and I’ll have pics for you on Monday. It’s a 2 day drive. Blah, I am dreading that part, but it’s going to be really fun to ride technical singletrack and hang out with teammates!

Earlier this week I took to the steep, dirt canyon roads – my favorite thing to do when I can’t ride singletrack.

I admittedly spend too much time climbing and should be spending more time on the flats. However, a lot of my 75-100 mile races have 9000-17,000′ of elevation gain. That’s a lot, so I try to do what I do in races. That’s ride uphill (and rage the downhill!)  Plus, most of these rides go up to 9,000+ ft elevation which is a very good thing since I do a lot of high altitude races in the CO Rockies.  Turns out that John Denver wasn’t full of shit!

I can’t say enough how much I love the Ergon GX3s. They are my favorite grip, and I’ve tried pretty much all of them. The bar ends are perfect.

My rides have been looking like this lately:

and

The Suunto T6 is serving me well! Steady, subthreshold efforts uphill…

…and then the pendulum swung, and the weather went back to winter yesterday.

and it only got deeper.

I’m sick of freezing my butt off in sub-arctic weather. Conveniently, I received a brand spanking new trainer from Kinetic Trainers a couple weeks ago and actually WANTED to ride it! I’ve been riding a garage sale antique for a long time which is, needless to say, pretty awful.

This thing… is… amazing. It works really really well. It’s the first time I ever enjoyed riding the trainer.

I have been SERIOUSLY considering putting a flat bar on my road bike. I never ride the thing because I hate road bike handlebars. I threw on a mtb handlebar with Ergon grips. I can’t tell you how much happier and more comfortable I was on the bike. I think a flat bar for my road bike is in the very near future so I actually use the poor little Cannondale.

I had a really good time because I was 1)comfortable the flat bar 2)riding a really great piece of equipment and 3) had some really fun new techno beats to keep me motivated…oh yeah, and I was doing intervals which makes the time fly:

The sun is out… I’ll be taking it outdoors tomorrow.