Unfortunately, those 1100 miles are driving miles, and not riding miles. This past week consisted of death, family, driving, snow, driving, rain, and sickness and driving. (not necessarily in that particular order)
Last Thursday I made a spur of the moment 13 hour drive to Idaho to be with my family because my Grandmother passed away. I arrive in Pocatello to find snow and really really cold air. I also woke up the morning after my late arrival to find I was coming down with a head cold. I tried getting on the trainer a couple days after I got there – and I was miserable. I lasted a whole hour. But I did get in some Kung Fu Panda, so that was great!
Being with the family was great – I don’t get to do that very often – due to distance, so it was fun. The funeral was as good as a funeral could be. I saw a lot of people that I haven’t seen in ages, including more of my family, so that was nice.
I tried getting on the trainer a couple days later – having a full on head cold, but feeling really antsy because I couldn’t really do anything outside (Now that I think about it, I should have gone X-Country skiing) – Anyway, I hopped on the trainer. I felt good warming up, but when I got off the bike for a short “switching movie session” after 20 minutes of warming up, I felt like I was about to pass out. I know it was pretty much just because my HR was high and then I all the sudden stopped riding, but still – I hovered over the garbage can, feeling pretty woozy – then regained my composure and hopped back on the bike. I was planning on doing some short Threshold efforts – so I did my first one. 90 seconds – felt good. I finished the interval and immediately felt the nausea coming back – I was also coughing quite a bit and once again reached for the garbage can. Maybe this workout wasn’t such a good idea. So, I spent the rest of the hour trying to keep my HR at a decent – high endurance level which felt pretty good. At the end of my hour and 1/2 I tried 1 more effort. To no avail the nausea feeling came back – and I decided to cool down and call it quits. So much for a good week of build.
11.5 hours back to Oregon (the weather was better on the way back), I’m feeling pretty exhausted and sickly. My headcold is not letting me sleep. I wake up after a little rest and feel a little better – my nose wasn’t snotting as much, so that was a good sign. Chris, Derek, and I went for a ride. My legs didn’t feel tired, but they also didn’t feel like they were strong from a good week of workouts, so I was a little worried about the upcoming Banana Belt on Sunday.
Banana Belt came a long. Another 2.5 hours of driving. (I swear it never ends). Sunday morning at Hagg Lake was frigid. Rains pouring, actually blowing sideways, the wind blowing, getting stronger and stronger every minute. We started the race with few people in attendance. (Whoever didn’t end up racing Sunday was SMART!!!!!!!!!!). I wasn’t feeling it – the race I mean – I just wasn’t in it. My glasses were fogging, my eyes hurt from the grit, my legs hurt from the attacks at the front. At some point along the dam I took my glasses off, and stuffed them in my pocket, meanwhile drifting to the back. I spent the next few minutes trying to get my way to the front before the next hill….it came sooner than I wanted it to and the attack came. My legs screamed, my chest got tight, and I just couldn’t do it. Almost there…almost…If I had been 2nd or 3rd wheel, I could have made it. But I wasn’t there. I was probably about 8th wheel back, and after passing a few people who were struggling just a bit more than I was, I saw the break pull away. I chased, I chased with all my might and my little muscles just couldn’t do it.
I was joined by 2 other girls, one of who ended up yelling at me for not doing work for the next few minutes – I just thought to myself…”I’m doing plenty of work dangling back here off the back trying to keep up with the 2 of you, there’s no way I’d be able to pull.” Then, I tried to pull and one of the girls yelled at me to get off the front because I would slow them down. Anyway, we eventually ended up working together, but to no avail. We were eventually joined by some other girls and pace lined for bit, but no luck. We kept the lead group in site for almost a lap and then they disappeared.
I spent the whole 3rd lap feeling miserable. I couldn’t breath, I wasn’t recovering, and my lungs were screaming with tightness. I was starting to think I shouldn’t have even raced in this condition, but now that I was in it, by darned, I was going to finish! Well, just after the finishing stretch, going into the 4th lap, just when I’d gotten my gung-ho-ness back because of it being the last lap, I went to switch into my little ring and KUNG – my pedals froze and I couldn’t pedal. It felt like my bearings in my bottom bracket had completely failed. I pulled over to the side as the group I was with slinked away. I quickly got of my bike to assess the problem. When I lifted up my bike and turned my cranks, they spun fine. So, I got back on the bike, tried to switch gears to continue up the hill and all I heard was some awful crunching, gears sliding, no gripping, not so good noises. I was done. I got off my bike, rather irritated, and walked back to the finish line to tell them i was a big fat DNF.
As for the rest of my team: We had passed Lisa who was stranded on the side of the road. She had been in the break group, gotten a flat tire, and couldn’t get a spare because the spare car was behind us. What luck, eh? I think she could have given them a run for their money in the final sprint! But Jackie did a pretty good job of it on her own – placing 3rd in the 1/2 women. Pam got a flat within the first lap and Jill stayed back to help chase her back on (TEAMMATE POINTS FOR JILL!!!) They chased the entire race – giving them an awesome workout! Jessi worked her little butt off in our chase group – and ended up getting 4th in the Cat 3 race, which is just awesome!
Overall, a bunch of bad weather, and bad luck for some of us – but what do ya do????
This week I am looking forward to kicking my own butt. I am going to be putting on the hurt and officially starting my Build I period. This will put me a bit behind schedule, but I’ll just compact a few weeks, and I’ll be fine. I feel better today, and feel like I’m ready to go out and brave the rain and the muck here that has been happening in Eugene. Hopefully I’ll have a little bit more legs for the final banana belt.
Oh yeah, I found out later that the problem with my bike was just chain stuck – all the grit and lack of lube caused my chain to jam up between my chain ring and bottom of the back triangle….my bike now has a nice huge chunk of itself taken out where the chain hit. Just glad it wasn’t my bearings, cause I don’t have the $$$ to be worrying about that right now.
Okay – that’s it.
But life will go on. We may be doing the DRVTT this weekend, which I’ve heard is just amazing, so we’ll see! If not, it’s a bunch of hard weekend rides on my own! yipeee!!! Maybe I’ll just go have an individual Willamette Stage race.
Here’s a picture of him getting his sprint on at 