Waterlogged

Been a few weeks since I posted...though in my mind I've posted a lot.  lol.  Sometimes I just don't quite sit down and type all the posts I think about.

Four weeks to go till my last scheduled race for the season - I've decided that Kansas needs to be it for me, and then I need to rest and recover my body.  I may do some races, short ones - aka sprints only - but I am not going to plan any, and I'm not going to do any structured training.  I'll do whatever, have fun, work on my weak spots, and recover my body fully so that I am ready to take on a full again next year.

This weekend we have had a lot of rain.  To say the least.  Yesterday I headed out for a 3.5 hr ride from SF.  Brett was supposed to lead with me, but he ended up sick.  I too was sick earlier this week, sick as a dog on Monday night.  Seems it has been going around the city, I'm told.  At any rate, I showed up since others may have been planning to join.  As it turns out it was only me and Jason, a 22 yr old elite athlete who has just graduated and heading home to Manhattan this week to take on the real world.  We had a great ride, chatting on the way out.  It started to rain lightly about an hour in.  By the time we turned around it was raining pretty heavily.  But what can ya do?  Ride through it of course!  And although I'm sure he could have gone faster I don't think I held him up too much.  Not bad for a 44 yr old woman.  :)  We averaged 18.6 mph, which is not too shabby for an endurance ride.  And my normalized power was way WAY better than I would have expected, which is quite encouraging.  Maybe things are starting to come back.

Today, I had a long brick on the schedule.  The forecast called for rain all day.  I woke up, and sure enough it was raining.  I also needed to do this workout on my own, since it was a pretty targeted race-specific workout. 15 minute run, 3 hr bike at race power, 30 minute run at race pace.  At 730 I headed down to the clubhouse - still won't run up or down that hill on a brick.  Sat in the car for a few minutes, wondering just how crazy I was, and finally just decided I needed to get on with it.  So, out I went.  It actually was pretty good.  The rain did get quite heavy at times, and I cut it a few minutes short because I really was just TIRED of the rain.  All told, I did 3:30.  It actually reminded me of playing soccer in grade 9/10.  I always did better in the games we played in the rain.

It felt good to get out and do my long rides this weekend, rain or not.  Made me feel committed!  I've been off swimming all week, with some rotator cuff issues, hoping to get back in this week.  Between massage and Dr Sadri, things feel okay.  I really want to show up at the race as ready as I can possibly be and end the season strong.

Happy Training
Kat