Still riding, but writing about it has been falling through cracks. It's been long enough (six days) that it's becoming hard to remember what I did when, but I think I have it.
Last Tuesday, I did half an hour on the trainer pretty late in the evening. It was fairly mellow and provided good recovery after Monday's hard work in class.
Wednesday, I rode to David's with tools in the backpack to help him swap the cassette from his old rear wheel to the new. He just got a set of very cool Speed Dream wheels. Downhill to his house took 10 minutes and uphill home took 20, which took care of my daily half an hour.
Thursday, I went to class full of motivation. The meat of the class was three efforts -- 20, 22, and 24 minutes -- in zones 2 and 3. I arrived a few minutes late and rushed my warm up. The first interval went fine. The first eight minutes of the second were OK too, but a few minutes later I felt completely empty. I powered way down and finished the interval. Tried to do the third interval in zones 1 and 2, but had neither strength nor motivation and shut it down. Still ended up with 75 minutes on the bike. I think I ate something bad; felt more than a little bit off the rest of the day and the next morning.
Friday, I commuted to the City, taking a detour on the way in to run an errand. On the way back, I took the scenic route of West Oakland (that's a joke for those unfamiliar with my hometown), as I rode to the temple to meet Sophie and Jessica to see Sophie off on religious school weekend away. All this added up to 35 minutes.
Over the weekend, Jessica and I took advantage of our freedom and headed to wine country. We spent Friday night and most of Saturday in Calistoga and late Saturday afternoon through Sunday morning in Napa. We had fabulous meals in both cities at Jole in Calistoga and Zazu in Napa. On Saturday, Jessica and I rode for 2:30 on Silverado Trail and climbed Howell Mountain, taking a portion of the route of Knoxville Double. Since I'd missed my big ring Friday ride, I climbed Howell in the big ring, doing a lot of pulling and pushing. The climb was exposed and hot at noon, so after climbing four miles we turned around at the White Cottage Road intersection, about half a mile below the summit.
We came home on Sunday and I snuck out for 81 minutes, doing Pinehurst-Redwood, descending Joaquin Miller, and cutting about 3 miles from the traditional loop. I ride harder when I ride alone, and today's was the biggest effort I've put in on an outdoor ride in a long time. After 21 very hilly miles I ended up with average speed of 15.6 mph, which I found both encouraging and disappointing. The encouraging part was the average speed, going hard and steady up South Pinehurst, and climbing the last mile of Redwood at 12 mph, maintaining the effort while sweat and drool poured down my face. The disappointing part was the climb up Tunnel, on which my PR is 22:27, but today I barely broke 26 minutes in spite of working fairly hard. I think I have good aerobic fitness from riding indoors, but my leg strength is at about B- level. I hope additional big ring rides will help build strength and get me to tops of climbs faster. It doesn't help that my PR is ten years old and that I did intervals up Tunnel twice a week during the spring and summer I'd set it. It would be nice to come close to a 10-year old PR -- something to aspire to.
115 (damn, time flies!)
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