Weekly Workout Totals 06/18/2007-06/24/2007and Nuclear Hangover Ride!

Today I went riding with Marty, who was brave and smart enough to take me up on an offer to meet him in Fermilab to do some intervals. The drawing above is from the cover of a magazine. Check it out if you're a geek! The next 2 pics are of Marty and I before we began riding; the next 2 are when we are about 2/3 done and the swans were on my way home.

Last night, I went down to my local summer festival, called Heritage Fest, with Harold, who is a guy I met on a ride about a month ago. We both have challenging schedules, and we would be riding together more except that he crashed on his MTB and messed up a finger (just like Cindy--what is it with friends messing up their pinkie fingers?), so he was available for a mellow evening and I somehow managed to stay awake after my 4 hour trainer ride followed by a :40 run and then a :30 swim. The upshot was that I was very much enjoying his company, and I drank a bit more than I should have considering what I needed to do today. But you know how some people are worth a hangover? Harold is one of those people. After he went home, I stayed up until (GASP!) 11:30, so I could do a little dancing with the stereo cranked (hey it's something I do a few times a year, what can I say?), and I set my alarm clock for 6:00AM in case I didn't feel like waking up so I could be ready to ride by 7:15.

I woke up at one point during the night and popped some Tylenol, which was a good move. I woke up at 5:39 before the alarm clock and felt like what the hell, this is going to be an interesting day! I know from past experience (and not too many times, for the record) that I can still ride pretty well with a hangover, but you never know. Luckily, I had mixed all my bottles and had Bitchie all set up to go except for pumping the tires, so all I really needed to do once I woke up was fucking wake up and pound down some calories. Before yesterday's workout festival, I downed 700 calories before I mounted LGL (I ended up on the trainer for 4 full hours!), but today, I only downed about 600. Of course, 300 of that was Ultrafuel, which didn't make me gag right away, but a few minutes after it was down the hatch it made me gag, and then I brushed my teeth and gagged a few minutes and then my stomach kept being mad at me to the point where I really would have liked to vomit, but then I'd need to brush my teeth again which would make me gag, so I did my best not to puke.

It was supposed to be a sunny, mild (high 80) day, but there were remnant clouds left over from yesterday's constant rain. It was about 65 when I started riding, and it felt nice and cool, but I wasn't chilled or anything. As I headed west, I saw lots of cyclists with all long sleeves and shit and thought what wusses. 65 or higher and I am in sleeveless tank, because that's what I'd wear in an Ironman race so I should be used to it, right?

About 5 miles from home who did I see going the opposite direction? Larry, the guy who is going to borrow my bike box this fall. I recognized him, and when he realized it was me, he also let out a big yell. He has never seen me on any of my bikes, and I was all hunkered down aero getting things done. It was nice to see him.

About 2 miles later, I came upon signs indicating there was a 5K that was going on, which I figured would start at 8AM. I almost wished I had running shoes with me and didn't have to meet Marty at a set time, because I would have run the race and then gotten back on my Bitch! I saw some volunteer girls with these really neat hats (sparkly AND pink!), and I told them I thought they were cool.

About 1.5 miles later, who rides up on me but Lauren Jensen and her husband, Todd. Lauren lives in southern Wisconsin, but she comes down my way for various races, and she goes to the same bike shop as me, and I don't remember just when I met her, but we always say hi to one another. So now I'm allegedly warming up and now I'm with a pro triathlete, so you know what happens--we pick it up, and I figure I had better hang with her and Todd lest I look like a poser, you know? Lauren was supposed to be doing Ironman Switzerland today, but she's got a running injury (so sad), but she was still in a great mood. I asked what she was doing down here and there was some ride she was doing and she invited me and man, that would have been awesome to ride with her all day (assuming I could hang on), but I had a ride date with Marty, so no go. Lauren and Todd turned off my road after about 2 miles, and I was secretly glad that I rode harder for that short time even though I could supposedly relax now.

But no. Another 2 miles later, there's a group of 4 women coming from the north to an intersection, and I could have just latched onto them except that I got a red light. Of course, I was like, "Crap," but you know what had to be done. When my light changed, I gauged how fast they were going and figured I could catch up. So I did, said hello, and proceeded to pass them all and pull in front, and then I had a nice train behind me for about 2.5 miles. I was hauling ass going 26MPH and periodically I'd glance behind to see if they were able to stick with me. Not all the time, but after that nice pull, I dropped back to chat with them and we began climbing the ONE hill on this route and I commented to one of them that I couldn't climb for shit today. What she heard was, "I can't climb for shit," and she said she was the same way, and so I corrected her and said, "No, I just can't climb TODAY--I'm a good climber, and I did a 200K with 10,000 feet of climbing last Saturday." So then she says, "Oh, so this is a recovery ride, right?" And I said, "No, I'm recovered and this is my 4th ride of the week." At this point, I think the ladies figure out I'm pretty serious (duh) and we discuss what we are doing today. I would have been happy to ride with them some more (they were pretty good), but they had their own agenda and I had mine. So we parted ways at Eola Road, which is where I turn and head north to enter Fermilab.

I had agreed to meet Marty at the East gate, so the distance from my house there was about 19 miles, and I'd gone pretty fast, so I arrived ahead of schedule (8:30 was our agreed upon meeting time). Marty arrived, and I felt sorry for him because I don't think he had a warmup, as we just started the intervals--:25 of HIM watts, :10 at FTP, and then some rest. I told him to just hang with me and he could draft or whatever. I was putting out good power today, which kinda surprised me what with the hangover (which I dutifully used in my deliberate sandbagging before we started riding), but I think I am just peaking and it's all good. I warned him when we needed to crank it up a notch, and I did pull away from him, which I expected, but dang, that boy has some serious potential!

After we finished the first interval, we had some time to chat, and I was only supposed to ride easy for :05, but I wasn't concerned, so we extended that a bit because I didn't think it would be nice to just ride. Marty's a fucking smart geek! And I mean that as a compliment! It was awesome hearing about his graduate studies and we found it really easy to talk to one another. You can't beat the combination of someone who will ride with you that's fucking smart and interesting!

We began the second interval, only we went a bit easier than HIM watts, which was fine, because I was riding more than Marty and knew I could "make it up" later after he left. But when it came time for the second FTP interval, I just poured it on. We went into a slight headwind, which I like, because it makes me push harder, and I think I was going about 24MPH into it and just loving every second. We finished that up right next to my favorite tanks of Helium and Nitrogen, and that's where we shot the photos you see above in front of the tanks. At first I was going to go with the Helium, but then I made a split-second decision to go with Nitrogen. Marty made some comment about the element that I don't remember, but I know it was clever and funny (for a pair of geeks, anyway!).

Then we rode easy to get Marty back to his car so he could take off. He was going with his girlfriend to the Gay Pride parade in downtown Chicago. I asked him if they planned to act gay or not, and I told him that sometimes when I travel with girlfriends on training junkets that we play it up as if we are lovers and laugh hysterically.

Marty's doing a sprint triathlon next weekend in Decatur and then an Olympic in Mattoon, and we have no idea if and when we will see one another again, but I think I convinced him to sign up for Miami Man if he can swing the timing with his graduate studies. He wasn't planning on stepping up to that distance that year, but you know I'm an incessant pusher, and I know he could do it.

So Marty takes off and I turn for home, and I'm riding well and still enjoying the day. About 7 miles from home is when I saw the swan cygnets, and it took me a few seconds before I realized I had my camera with me and could capture them. The cygnets are so cute!

When I'm about .75 miles from home, I almost got killed by some interloper from another suburb who's madly turning left in front of me to get to a parking spot for the festival presumably so he and his family can stuff their maws full of Elephant ears, corn on the cob, pizza and other assorted junk food (OK so I ate pizza last night, but what the fuck I needed like 5,000 calories yesterday). Oh my, did I let out a string of expletives, that I don't really care whether the asshole heard me or not, but I needed to get it out of my system because I got such an adrenalin rush. I think the term I used was "What the hell you fucking bastard," and I screamed it at the top of my lungs. I had to swerve and lay on the brakes, but I didn't go down or anything and it gave me a bit of a scare. But I knew that it was due to the damn festival, so I'm glad it's over today and I won't have to face it again TOMORROW when I have to RIDE AGAIN!

Yes, you heard it right, that will be 4 days straight of cycling, and I am also riding Tuesday so that will be 5 days in a row. I have this love-hate relationship with my coach. I love him when the training makes me strong (and once again, he's right on schedule with my beginning to peak for IMLP), and I hate and curse him when I'm in agony, like I was once I started to run after the ride today. Before Rich wrote up my training block that goes through the next 2 weeks, I had made one myself. Usually I can put the screws to myself pretty damn well, but when I got his version, I was like, what the hell, can I even do this shit? But he's been my coach for 3 years now, and he knows what I'm capable of and so I just do it.

Oh, lordie, I can bike like a mofo with a hangover, but running fucking SUCKS! But I did it, and actually ran decently, considering I did a brick yesterday, too. And now I am starting on a little painkiller and laying in bed and watching "The Barber of Seville" opera (my favorite, by Rossini) and periodically checking the IMCDA results, but there's plenty of time for that later, maybe a nappie poo, and I still have to go get groceries and do laundry. I live in a fucking bike shop/bottle factory right now and it just makes me laugh!

P.S. Harold--I DID kiss my Bitch before I rode her hard today.

P.P. S. Doesn't my new Catlike helmet (and matching shades) make me look like a bad-ass?

P.P.P.S. Is the signage above my head on the nitrogen tank talking about the element or me?

And now for the workout totals. The funny thing is all that I had scheduled for Monday was a :30 swim, to which I added :30 strength, and look where I ended up! I wrote my own swim workouts for the week. I've got two more big weeks (about 20 hours each) and then I start to taper down. I think I needed all that beer last night!

Weekly Totals 06/18/2007-06/24/2007
Swim: 13850 yards (7.86 miles) in 4.93 hours; 22% of weekly workout time; approx. 1727 calories burned
Bike: Approx. 199.21 miles in 11.35 hours; 51% of weekly workout time; approx. 5016 calories burned
Run: Approx. 32.16 miles in 4.85 hours; 22% of weekly workout time; approx. 2199 calories burned
Strength: 1.1 hours; 5% of weekly workout time; approx. 275 calories burned
All Sports: Approx. 239.23 miles in 22.23 hours; approx. 9217 calories burned
Sleep: 7.25 hours avg./night
Stretching: 2.97 hours. Massage: 1.5 hours