Suck it up and ride

I have said it before... I can’t be idle for too long before I go crazy. So... despite being done with my PhD... life is not ending up with me just racing and training. Nope. For me, I need to be doing stuff, so, shockingly, I am. I have been working on team sponsorship stuff for next year and it is something that I find that I really like and am pretty good at. I missed my calling as a sales person, since I kind of like doing the pitch when it is something that I believe in. Clearly, I believe in this team, so it is fun to try and convey that excitement to other people. That is pretty much my job description... well, rather, putting the pitch into a really really pretty package. Bless you Apple computers... they make the greatest software for stuff like that. But it has been a TON of work! So, sorry for not blogging much. I am working on trying to stay updated more.

Things are going well. I have been feeling really good and racing/training hard. I got back from ‘Toona and took one day off and then headed back into another hard training block. I think that Linda is out to kill me! She has been pushing me really hard to get my power up and my sprint on form for when I head back over the pond. I am very excited by it all!

Yesterday was a hard one- I had an absolutely grueling workout in the morning and then headed off to do a training crit with the local guys. I was suffering out there! Man- hot as hell and humid! I am not use to it and sweat buckets and was so dehydrated. I drank two bottles in that race and still ran out of water and was dehydrated with half the race to go: thought that I would die. We did 18x2-mile laps and when I saw 12 to go- I thought that there was simply no way I was going to finish. I wanted to quite, pretty badly. But then I got excited. I was hurting. I was suffering. I was not doing well. I wanted to stop. HEY! That is a great chance to practice sucking it up!

In all honesty- there have been so many races where I have thought that I could not finish. One of the key races in that category was the Altoona crit last year- of the 30 laps, I was bonking at lap 5... I don’t know how I held on, but I did. Then I rallied and finished 5th. Not sure how.

Well- yesterday felt like that. I don’t often get a chance to practice rallying and sucking it up in that type of a situation, so that is how I looked at it. I was totally blown after I had gone hard for a cash prime (took second) and then the guys counter-attacked me hard! (NOTE: I had no intention of going for the prime, but they egged me on. THEN they attacked me!) I was hanging on when a group got off. So, I tried to bridge up with a friend of mine- rather, he was trying to drag me up there. But I was blown from the back to back efforts and could not make it and he was dropping me. So, the rest of the race, I sat in with the main pack and suffered.... each lap, looking at the cards and thinking, “ok, only 10 more. You can do 10.” “Only 5 laps left. This will make you better”...

So, I did. And it felt good. It was a great workout and I was glad to have a chance to fight the inner-whiner and repress the urge to stop.

That also falls in line with my new mantra on intervals: “Only X more minutes to get better”. When I am doing a hard interval, I get excited to think that I am getting better. As I am suffering, I think about how few minutes you really get to get BETTER. Not many, really. So, I focus and really think of how that effort is going to make me better. Only two minutes left to get better. Only one more interval to make me better... that is what goes through my head. I kind of like it when I want to quite because then I can fight it. My hell workout yesterday was a battle like that: each time, I would say, “one more... just do ONE more”... It works for me.

Speaking of sucking it up and riding...

It is hot and humid outside and I can tell you with certainty that I don’t want to get out there. I have saddle sores, am tired and it is unpleasant to even set foot away from the precious air conditioning... but guess what?

Yup. BYE!