Spring Rides: Heaven on Earth

It must be the long winter that makes the first few rides in the spring feel so wonderful....the warm air, the chirping birds, the endless sun....ahhhhh...there's nothing like a long ride with friends on a Sunday afternoon in early spring.

Its Monday and I still feel a bit "high" from yesterday's ride. We left from Sarah's house at 1:30 and got back around 3:00'ish. It was a bit nippy at the start but we warmed up fast.

We went south to Milliken and then up Mad Russian Hill. I felt great!  We rode 23 miles and I held a fast pace the whole way. I felt a little guilty because Sarah was not feeling great and I was pushing the pace (although Lynne and Marshall were way ahead of me).  This was the first time I've ever done Mad Russian hill feeling strong enough to NOT use my 3rd ring.

I hope I have more days like yesterday!

I actually got a lot of exercise yesterday. I walked to and from church, which is a good 20 minutes if you walk very fast (30 mins at a leisurely pace) and really enjoyed that. I was a bit sore from the 11 mile run on Saturday so walking felt really good. In fact, I thought to myself that if I ever get injured and I cannot run, I would actually enjoy walking. There is a whole other zen to walking that you don't get with running (but the reverse is true too).

Today, I went to Master's swim and got there by 6:20, in the water by 6:25.  I was really motivated to swim this morning and had a good workout. I couldn't keep up with Sarah (although she had on fins and I didn't) but it didn't bother me today. Tom was in the lane next to me and as usual, he kept me laughing.

I warmed up with about 400 yards (maybe more) of freestyle. Then the main set was: 2 x (200 easy, 150 fast, 100 easy, and 50 fast). There was a lot more but this was all I could do before 7:00, when I need to get out and get kids to school. So that would be....400 + 300 + 200 + 100 =1000, plus my warm-up = 1400 yards.

Normally, it would bother me to not do an entire workout but I've decided that until June, if I keep up this amount 3/week, I'll be in good shape to increase my swim mileage this summer and that's when the IM training really starts.  And besides, I was doing this much (or less) this time last year and I managed to eek out a 1:18 IM swimtime!  (I'm so proud of that!!!)

OK, so now I need to find time to lift weights. I always put that at the end of my list of things to do.  I need to move that higher...that's my biggest challenge, in terms of training...well, and getting high mileage in while getting things done at home too!

Off to get kids at school...more later.