Adventures of the Northwest

Riding Milly for the 1st time in 2006!

WHEW LORDIE! Sunday - January 8, 2006 1st outdoor ride of the year.

It felt good.... I have had a lot of challenges with my mom's health, recently going on insulin, having fallen; the holidays; being sick over the holidays; being busy just in general and anything else that is called "life" ... it felt real good to see familiar faces in the Marymoor Velodrome Parking Lot. Felt like good ol' times to see John, Jane, Brian, The Aura's and Carol. Felt really good to socialize, get a bike ready and anticipate a great ride. This would be the first maiden voyage of 2006. I have been spending all winter on the trainer with minimal riding outside. I am trying to do my scheduled workouts to a T from what my coach, Izette has given me. Izette showed up on her Lemond fixie (well free-wheel single speed - i.e. she can stop pedaling and not get torpedoed off the bike!) that she transformed a geared bike to and was not only there to show us her stuff but to see what our riding style was and what we needed to change or work on.

It felt good to roll out of the parking lot on a clear sky, free of rain, crisp airy Sunday morning and start heading around the lake. We rode going counter-clockwise. :) I spoke with Izette and let her know I ran 25 mins the day before and then rode my trainer bike for 1.5 hours of the scheduled 2 hours. That was fine, she stated, since 20 mins of running is like 45 mins of riding. SWEET! I was concerned about my legs though as I felt them a bit on the trainer Saturday night.

I seemed to handle the hills and the whole ride just fine. My legs were a bit tired as we were climbing but it felt good to challenge them and feel my muscles tear slightly as there was sure to be growth afterwards. On the west side of the lake I managed to stay up in front, for the most part, with another 3 to 4 riders. On the south end I had to take my gloves off, after already having my jacket off, since I was feeling too hot still. It was incredible as part of the ride I was absolutely blinded by the sun's glare on the wet pavement from the overnight rains. I didn't care... I was happy to see the sun out, no rain and enjoying a great ride with friends!

We re-grouped near FedEx and I was debating taking off my "Byrne Speciality Cases" beanie cap. I should have... I was explaining to Izette, during the regroup, that I definitely felt a difference. I definitely felt I was bouncing less while going down the hills. That I was trying to visualize my feet going forward and back rather than up and around. It appears that my visualization wasn't strong this time around and/or my legs (after doing all the spinning drills at home) knew exactly what they needed to do. They took over and I felt less effort was needed to try to move my feet more in the forward/backward motion - it just was happening! SWEET!

We started to go up the eastside of the lake. Jane was leading out, pulling strong, and then we switched out. I was now pulling strong, leading out with Jane and Izette behind me. Jane and Izette were discussing their cadence. I hear Izette nagging on Jane to up her cadence more and at the same time I thought she was referring to me as well. I was like - dang I am on the fixie and I am slowly feeling overheated and exhausted - I don't think I can do much more. About half the group slowly pushed past me.

At the top of one of the larger 'hills', on the eastside, I stopped and took off my beanie cap as the rest of the group passed me. I then descended down the hill and was able to catch up to the last person, Brian. I could periodically see a few more riders in my view but they were probably close to a mile ahead. I rode behind Brian a bit, talking just a bit but he seemed tired (he also rode to the start from Kirkland). I then pulled next to him and eventually in front. Around Inglewood Hill, knowing I had 5 miles left, I started to get a second wind or maybe it was just the horse seeing the barn syndrome but about 4 miles out of the park I started to pick up speed and strength. I felt really good and I looked over my shoulder and realized I had dropped Brian quite a bit more than I thought I did.

I turned into the backroad into the park and waited for Brian. We then rode into the Park and the parking lot together. I think this was a great ride for all of us to really see where we are at for a starting point in the beginning of the year. It will be a measure of where we are, what we need to do and where we need to go to improve for track this year. We are planning on meeting up this next Sunday as well and Izette definitely wants me only to ride Milly once a week and lower my heart rate going around. My heart rate was an average of 166 over the 1.5 hour ride. I was in my zone only 37 mins of that and burned 1027 calories. Awesome but definitely need to get that heart rate down!

Until next week... when we do it again and hopefully each week we will keep improving. It felt good though... real good to be out, with friends, on a beautiful, rain-free morning - bicycling around the lake. The season is beginning! I am sooooo excited!

posted by Seattlebiker @ 5:56 PM