New Man

After not getting the results I would have liked on the weekend I was a bit bummed and couldn't figure out why I felt so weak. I've done a bit of research and asked around which has led me to the realization that I've unfortunately been training at an intensity that has been far too easy, even for the easy riding time of year, and likely hasn't been doing anything for me. Though it's a bit of a bummer, it may come in handy to have ridden with no intensity thus far as the races I hope to do well in aren't until the end of summer and maybe the super easy riding up until now will help in preventing burn out.

That being said, after returning home from the race on the weekend I was more than ready to up the intensity a bit. I've put in 2 fairly hard 2.5 hr rides on Monday and Tuesday and a 3.5hr recovery ride today at the intensity that I should have been working at all along. I tell ya it feels like I've been reborn. I enjoy riding all sorts of bikes at all sorts of intensities but the part of riding, and I guess all aspects of life, that I enjoy most is pushing myself. I don't think I enjoy anything more than pushing myself so hard that I can't feel my legs and I'm on the verge of puking out my right lung. This sounds a little odd to some but I think most endurance athletes share this, or a similar, outlook on things.

The fact that Dallas is the 3rd windiest city in America used to drive me batty. Previously, when mistakenly trying to maintain a hr of 120, I despised the wind as any resistance at all would put me over this. Now, that I've realized that I should be riding harder than this, I love it. Most of the roads here a fairly flat and to have a good strong headwind is something I'm really starting to enjoy. The temperature has also shot up significantly in the past week and today I got a mean arm burn as it got up to about 25 celsius.

OH! I also got to live out a dream of mine on the weekend! Made it to the IHOP on Friday night for the $4 all you can eat pancakes. I don't know what happened but I couldn't manage to put anything more than one plate-full down. Terrible. I also found out that Tuesday was National Pancake Day. God bless America.