Progress Finally

Tonight's workout, courtesy of Coach B was a strength ride. We were to ride as much as possible in the big chain ring...even up the hills. I decided to ride in WC as I was short of time. As we all know WC has a nasty little hill but is mostly flat with some rollers.

Well I am happy to report I did stay in the big ring on the rollers and only dropped a few gears in the middle ring on "nasty, little hill". I actually manged to hold 13.5 mph on the hill and averaged 17.6 for the whole ride. Not blazing fast by most standards but I am stoked.

On a random note...after climbing "the hill" on the first loop, some guy pulls up next to me and starts quizzing me about my riding. This sort of irritated me, even though I think he was just trying to be kind. I just did not feel like explaining why I was trying to power up that hill in a heavy gear. Mainly because at that point I could hardly breathe.

Why do complete strangers feel the need to critique a persons workout? This happens to me in the pool sometimes. Oh well!!!

Stepping out of my Comfort Zone

Today I found myself with an appointment in the Lake Anna area so I decided to take my bike and do a ride. I am not usually one to ride a route unseen as I have had a few terrible experiences with mucho traffic, huge trucks buzzing me or roads not being where the map says they are. But I thought what the hell, how bad can it be in that area. I mapped out a route the night before looking for a comfortable ride of about 32 miles with only a few turns.


I was rewarded with a beautiful day, quiet country roads traversing 4 counties, Louisa, Spotsylvania, Caroline and Hanover. It was such a great ride the roads were empty, and really mean that. On some roads maybe one car passed me.

I hit one snag when one of my turns was not really a road but crushed stone with major potholes. Rather than risk a flat I made a quick detour which added 3 more miles but I didn't mind.

The route is what I would call rolling, with a good mix of short steep climbs, rollers and false flats. Good climbers would probably laugh and say it was flat. See for yourself.