Saturday, April 19, 2008

Saturday Mornings

Today was the perfect morning! I rolled out of my house at 6am on my road bike in the cool air of dawn. It was maybe just 50 degrees and I felt chilled as I left, not so much that I was shivering, which meant that as soon as I warmed up and the sun was up, I'd be comfortable, if not hot. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and hardly any cars out yet. This brought me back to when I first began training to race. I'd leave my house at 6am and warm up for an hour, arriving at the Amity Time Trial just in time, race the TT until I tasted blood, then spun home. I loved the fact that I would roll back into my driveway just as most were awakening to begin their Saturday. This is my time. It's peaceful out when the busy Saturday morning drivers aren't yet rolling, even if my heart rate is through the roof as I'm busting my ass. It's still peaceful to me.

I rode for 90 minutes on my own at an easier clip before arriving at Bethel Bike to join the group ride. They had a nice size group that split into smaller A, B, and C groups. We had seven riders in the A group who started the ride easy for oh, all of 5 minutes, and then began ramping up the effort. We rode at a great clip - one that was fast, yet doable and kept us together. Occasionally we'd break up a bit and we'd hold up to regroup, but for the most part, the group was very compatible. There were a ton of riders out today! I saw a big group from Target Training and from Team Mossman on the roads. Since I train mainly alone, it was nice having company and the effort was excellent - better than I would have done alone in the sense that roadies attack in spurts and hammer up hills but go easy at times. When they go hard, they go hard, and when they ride easy, they ride easy. As a triathlete, I get locked into TT mode in training and mostly jam along at a steady effort and cadence. However I believe that the different paces that roadies constantly do work all your systems and that doing a ride like this once a week can be extremely beneficial for a triathlete. In fact, as I road home alone, I vowed to begin doing more of these, aiming to join a group ride weekly.

I turned down my street at 9:30am, feeling great, and ready to tackle the day. And it's going to be a busy one between yard work and firing up the chainsaw to take down some trees, Ryan's soccer game, I promised I'd ride with him and Kate later in the day, ...

Hope everyone else seized the morning as well.

Cheers,

EH

1 comment:

alan said...

I, er, seized the afternoon yesterday to get out and do a long ride, so I probably shouldn't be posting a reply here, but I'm totally with you.

I love getting started early and finished early, when it works into the schedule. The best I felt all week was the day I was able to get into the pool before work.