Phew! I think I've found my track lane again!
PHEW!!!!
Thursday night's track training felt so good. I felt like me again. I felt like I was out of my slump. I'm not sure if it was due to me giving myself a 'pep talk' during lunch and trying to lift my spirits, the nutritional change I've been making with complex carbs (rice noodle mac n cheese - hmmm YUMMY!), more electrolytes and water and/or just changing my attitude. But it rocked! I did way better than I did on Sunday. Maybe it was seeing the circus freak tents for Cirque du Soleil. Who knows... but something's changed for the better. I'm happier and that is all that counts.
I got a lot of encouragement and support last night which also helped. I did some warm-up laps which felt good. Izette, my coach, saw my seat position as I was going around. She suggested we change my seat height to give me more pedal power. So we switched that up and I took some more laps. Felt ok... not overextended or anything. So we went with that.
We did a 20 lap warm-up with lots of new people so we took it easy. The first 10 laps were about 16-18 mph, next 5 were around 20 and next 5 were around 23. It felt good. There were a few minor issues with yo-yo-ing and people not able to stay on wheels or jumping off the turns incorrectly. But we dealt with them. Then we did 15 more laps increasing again to 23-25. It felt good and I didn't feel I was struggling too much.
We then did some pursuits. This is where I had to do some real digging. Izette, Jose and Chris were all supportive. Izette kept yelling at me to dig, dig, dig especially at the end of the 10 laps. I had to really dig as I was 'grunting' and trying to come up with last minute jet fuel, strength and energy to stay on a wheel. It was a bit difficult. We took a rest while another group took off. We then did it again. This time our effort topped maybe 24 mph not as hard as the other one and we had a couple more people with us - 5 total. But the effort didn't seem as taxing to me. So I'm learning what is pushing me and what is helping me. I had to dig a bit towards the last couple laps but not as bad as before.
Some people did another pursuit while Hyun and I went into the warm-up circle area. We rode around and talked about what I could do to better suit my training needs, my physical needs and my bike fit. I'm finding - like last year - the initial get up and get going is harder for me than if I'm already going out and about. Izette came up with an idea of how I can handle that by trying to get to the track early before races. I can then do some half-full efforts and then let my body totally recover. Repeating that several times to get my body up and ready before the pacelines and such. We practiced this quite a few times while everyone else was packing up to leave for the evening. She showed me what to do and it seemed to feel good. I wasn't feeling overly tired or anything so that was good. We also saw that I was recovering faster each time which is good.
Overall.... everything was great Thursday night. Without the support of several I wouldn't have been able to do it as well. I missed Jill and Jane though. Not sure where Jill was - perhaps recovering from Tuesday night's workout. Jane is having some lung/respiratory issues but she expects to be ground support for Saturday's class and possibly do a light workout Sunday. :)
Track season may be a great one this year! :)
Track training is like sucking a shake through a coffee stirring straw!
Man! Sunday's workout was difficult. I don't know why but it was. I was having a hard time catching my breath. I wasn't feeling 100% over the last couple weeks but I was having a real hard time find energy. Maybe the gluten/wheat free diet is not giving me as much of the right carbs or nutrients I need. Maybe I'm not as in good of a shape as I thought with all this training since November. I am not sure. It scares me.... I'm hoping I'll be ok. I'm hoping I can build strength.
I do know that I am able to do several jumps and efforts at speeds that are higher than last year. I am having a difficult time keeping the turbo jets on through at the end. I don't know if it is mental defeat or just physical need to push.
We did a 30 lap warm-up going about 25 mph at the end. I made it to about 26 or 27... my right hand was completely asleep. I went to switch hand positions after my last pull ,where I didn't go back into the paceline, and almost slid down track as my right hand didn't want to hold onto the handle bar. :( We broke up in groups and did some jump efforts. These felt good but Jane and Jill still pulled away from me. I'm frustrated about that but I know 'sprinting' is not my thing. I need to push myself though... I need to keep building strength on it and keep getting better. The groups did a 10 lap pursuit that I sat out on. Then they did one more that I participated in. At some point, due to a group passing us, I had to pull 2.5 full laps. I felt ok but was really tired. We then talked a bit, changed out Jane's cog to be smaller so she could spin more, and then we did some great 'cool down laps' which became more like pursuit laps. I held in there as long as I could. About 2 laps before I pulled off, I was feeling a lot of strain on my left leg mostly. The leg where I feel my ham/quads were either pulled or severely tight from my short run/walk the day before. My legs were fatiguing but it felt good. I finally decided to pull off after my pull. John and Jill went another 5 laps afterwards. They were pushing hard. I need to do that too.
I really appreciate Jill, Jane, John and Hyun giving me all their feedback, support and knowledge. I needed that. I need support right now. I'm not feeling confident. They said right now is going to suck. It's going to be hard to push myself for the endurance, the strength and speed. I hope I won't be sucking wind too terribly out there this year and that I can get my strength, speed and nutrition in check for a successful - and fun - track season.
Everyone's talking about the Tuesday fast track training sessions. I can't do it this week but I hope to do it for the next couple weeks. Maybe that will help me build up some strength. Last week they did 60 laps and ramped it up to 30 mph. That would definitely push beyond my threshold.... I think I need something like that. Maybe the class on Saturday and track training on Sunday will get me stronger too. We will see..... I'm nervous and scared at the same time....
Family is sweet and makes life sweeter!
My family is so awesome! They really pull through for each other when we need support from each other. This Friday I had some ups but mostly downs in life. Some personal and some - like another car hitting my car with a 'gentle tap' that left a little dent. Then Saturday I went to take my car to emissions and they couldn't even test it because it had a leak.
I took my car to Firestone - close to Marymoor where I was going to go biking with Jane - and they quoted me $1300 to fix my car with several things - needed and maintenance. It really irked me as I spent $700 last month on power steering where my bracket broke. UGH! So I drove with an over-heating car down to Tacoma to my uncle's shop. It was risky but I did it. He was going to fix it but everyone was telling me I should go with a brand new car and get something reliable, something I'm not 'saving money' to only put back into it and to know that I won't have maintenance repairs for awhile.
Monday my sister and I went shopping at a Honda dealer. We found out what it would cost me for the car I really wanted, what it would take, what percentage it was and so forth. My mom said she could help pay off the rest of my student loans. She wanted to do that for me as she was so proud of me doing it with no help for the last 10 years and I asked for minimal help through college itself. She wanted to do this for me. My sister wanted to buy my car. They need a car that uses up less gas and costs less than their trucks. She also feels they got time and a bit more income coming in should anything happen. My uncle said she was getting a deal and it really is a good car and still has a lot of life to it. So that is good because I'm so nervous that she just got a headache...but as cheap as she got it ... just let it run in the ground and be done with it. Save some $ for gas, etc. but as soon as it isn't worth it anymore than get rid of it. That's my thought. :) I hope she can get like another 100K out of it or so with minimal costs and lots of gas savings! :)
So Monday I walked out of the dealership at like 9 pm... ok... I didn't walk... I drove. I drove a new car! A Honda Civic Sedan EX with navigation. It is a pretty blue and it is spectacular. It felt good. Yeah it is a sweet car. I'm really liking it. OY! The voice commands will make navigation easier, and safer,in the car with teh GPS system....but I got tomemorize all these?! Some are easy radio on, radiooff, radio 93.3 FM, etc... then there is find nearestgas station, nearest restaurant (then goes into what restaurant types), nearest bank, nearest honda dealer, nearest car wash, veterinarian and so forth. UGH! Too many things to think about and remember. I'll be trying to memorize this book. I'll be saying find me the nearest peforming arts when I meant amusementpark. LOL! Need a sewing store? I can find the nearest one to the velodrome? LOL! Maybe I can ask it that. LOL! Find nearest velodrome. LOL!
We will see how much fun it is and I want to baby this one more than when I babied my Geo. I loved that car. I was proud of that car as my first new car. My ex-husband harrassed me so much about how much time I spent on it. Then 'we' bought the other car and I didn't like it that much. It was just too big for me and I hated it. I also tried to take care of it maintenance wise and cleaning wise but not as diligently.
I think this one will be pampered. :) It's gorgeous and it has everything I want.... economics of Gas 30/40, pretty color, sunroof, air conditioning. It is awesome. Way better gas mileage than most I saw. I was disappointed at some (KIA) had some options but not others I wanted. Gas was 24/34 for most I was eyeing. I really wanted a Hybrid but the Hybrids don't fold the seats down in the back. :( I wanted that capability. Especially until I get a bike rack. hee hee
However, I couldn't enjoy it without the sweet help of my family. I am very grateful for their support and assistance in helping me with this car purchase. I couldn't do it without them. Thank you for making life sweeter!!! I love you guys!!! :)
Long time no post....life is crazy but looking good!
Life is flying past me….. but yet the time change is making me so slow. I’m so busy that I can’t even think about posting to my blog most of the time. Maybe this summer with the excitement of training, racing and my training efforts paying off will encourage me. Family, friends, the sun, the blooming of new life, adventures in the sun, biking, racing, hiking…. Maybe I won’t have time.
It’s been crazy around my part of the world. I’ve been training most days – 6 days of the week – for 1 hour or 2 or even 3 hours. It has been intense, fun while sometimes wanting to just go home and crash. Crash from being tired, crashed from being emotionally drained about personal things, work things or whatever else things. Sometimes mentally drained and just want to go have fun.
I helped with the Marymoor Velodrome Association’s auction. It took place on April 1st. All of the volunteers did a lot of hard work and made a lot of effort to pull it off quite successfully!!! Hyun was a tremendous pillar for the organization’s success at this auction. He was the man. There were others that volunteered to do the big back drop boards that were incredible! :) Others helped with data entry (YEAH JOHN!!!!), helped organize the bidding sheets, give us feedback as to what auctions (during the live auction) were sold at and who won them and so forth. Jane was one of the MCs for the auction and did a great job. She won one of the best items – Rat City roller racing ticket package!!! :) Go Jane! :) Hee hee I had a lot of fun and enjoyed it. I wish I would have had time to bid on things and I was really shocked and disappointed by how cheap some items were sold at. However, overall we did a spectacular job! It was good seeing so many old faces although I didn't get to socialize like I wanted. I hope to see them all on the track soon! :)
Recently I did a ride with my coach, Jane and another woman. It was a lot of fun even though it rained on us. L It was a 60 mile ride from Renton to Black Diamond and back. It was nice and it didn’t rain too bad but just enough. I helped teach the first track class of the year the day before that. It was a lot of fun! I really enjoyed it and the students were great. What a great group of people that really did not hold back, didn’t have a lot of fears and were ready to get right into track racing. It was a good workout, albeit a bit easy and not what I really needed, but the 60 mile ride the next day whooped my butt. Between the hard workouts that week, the Saturday class and the fast ride on Sunday – I was whooped. I am hoping that all this training will pay off and will help me to be in tip top shape for this season. I am getting really anxious. Happy but anxious to race. Excited but anxious to race. It should be interesting.
I just got my new training schedule. I get to do hill repeats all month. I found the perfect hill, thanks to Jane’s suggestion, outside of Bothell area. I did it last night but started at Marymoor Park. So it was like a 10 mile ride to get up there. I climbed the hill, came back down, climbed the hill and on the 2nd descent it started to rain HARD. I was not a happy camper. I turned back to go home…. It’s ok I thought. I got extra mileage and next time I’ll park closer to the hill and go from there. It will be good. I got back to the park right before dark which was a good thing. It will be great to do that each week – 3 times, 4 times and even 5 times… UP and DoWn…. UP and DoWn…. UP and DoWn…. It should be interesting. The last week of my month long training will include Thursday night’s track training. That means a workout 7x/week. YIKES! I am supposed to get to the track every Sunday for a 2 hour workout. That should be fun – if the weather holds off. If the weather doesn’t hold off (or my schedule doesn’t permit) then I need to do a 2 hour workout at home or on the road.
Tuesday night, I was supposed to do an hour workout of zone 2. Zone 2 ‘walking’?!?!?! I couldn’t maintain Zone 2 in ‘walking’ conditions. That meant I essentially had to run! RUN!?! I’m not a runner but it did feel real good. I was trying to keep up with a friend of mine. Running, walking real fast – oooops, heart rate’s dropping…. Back to running…. Running kicking up my heels, running exaggerating knee lifts…. Ok heart rate is good… walk real fast….. heart rate’s dropping…. Back to running. Then there was this one time where I moved my legs almost as if I was roller skating or roller blading… I can feel that was good for my glutes and quads. Good deal! I need to do that messing around type running again sometime. J I feel good having run and am more motivated to do that type of thing more often now. My abs feel a bit sore which is great, my glutes, quads, inner thighs…. YEAH! Heck yeah! It feels good. I also lost 1.5 lbs this last week which makes me feel good.
Also, along with Jane, Jill and another friend – I have become wheat free (gluten when possible) with my diet. Many people I know (my coach, a friend in TOPS, etc.) are wheat or gluten free with their diets. Some people have SEVERE allergy reactions to those products containing wheat or gluten. Some people have a milder reaction, such as myself, where we feel bloated all the time. Feel like sandpaper is in our stomachs and they hurt so much after eating something with wheat in it. It is a difficult task to be on such a strict diet as lots of things you wouldn’t even think of have ‘wheat’ or by-products of wheat such as soy sauce or vinegar and so forth. It makes it quite challenging; however, I feel SOOOO much better having changed my diet. I do think I need to get more protein though and get a more balanced diet with my new diet. Tomorrow I am going to make some homemade energy bars for a 60 mile “Tulip ride” on Saturday. I LOVE that ride. It is always so beautiful and a great workout! I can’t wait!!! :) It should be a lot of fun but I am nervous as we usually stop at a bakery but I won’t be able to eat anything. I’ll have to bring some rice crackers to eat, some energy bars (homemade and 1 or 2 non-homemade just in case), a banana and I don’t know what else. I’ll bring quite a bit though to keep me going and to last a ‘lunch’ worth. :) Other than that, just looking for new adventures, new opportunities and to see where my ship will continue to sail. It should be fun and exciting. We will see what happens. I am trying to take on new things, have fun, enjoy life and also get really into shape. :)
Off for new adventures….. hope to keep you more in-tuned on them – SOON!
