Todays ride, 3/22/08

Greetings Readers!

We had a great day today, near 60 degrees and sunny! Ken and I went out for a spin, we decided to opt out of longer mileage in the favor of going uphill……. ugh. I love climbing, although I’m no good at it. Climbing is sorta like cross in a way, it’s a mind game. How far can you go up and how fast, without stopping? Your body says “I can’t make it I gotta stop” and your brain says “no way, you ain’t stopping, I don’t care if you puke” Sound familiar? How many times in a cross race with several laps to go have you been through that scenario? Must be the masochist in me cuz I like to climb. I’m just no good at it.

We took on several climbs today, the 1st over Mtn Home, and the 2nd over Laurel. I’ve taken pics of the Laurel climb for you in a previous post. So I just took pics of the Mtn home climb.

1st we start going uphill….

Check the sign at the side of the road, I love seeing that!

I like the wooded sections, the shade is welcome when your suffering.

I dig this shot Ken took.

I liked this guys house………

Gradually, still climbing.

At least it’s curvy, nothing sucks like a straight up climb!

Same spot, looking back the way we came.

Snow still covers the hills.

Mt Hood, watching over us.

At the top, looking southwest over greener pastures….

At the top, same spot, looking northwest.

All-n-all it was a pretty good ride, and I’m happy to be doing these climbs this early in the year. I’m closing in on a thousand miles at the end of the 1st quarter and that bodes well for a 4000 mile year. I have high hopes of continuing my fitness and getting stronger. That’s of course the best case scenario.

Balancing my competitive side, with the staying healthty and being stong side, is a tight rope walk that takes finess. I can easily stress out over being fit, and or missing a workout. That inner coach in me has to constantly intervene. “It’s ok Jim, chill, relax”. Recover, recover, recover. My pal Ken is a great sounding board and always seems to keep me grounded, so thanks for that bro. I’d love to use a real coach, but that isn’t in the plans this year. I’m going to have to do “it” on my own. Tall order folks. I keep trying to push it just a little bit more, a little bit harder, in very small increments. “Do the least amount of properly timed, specific training that brings continued improvment” Hoping that this strategy will pay off for me come Sept 21st when we have our 1st of 10 cross races this fall. The challenge: Managing training, my family, and my work. If I could get three even pieces of pie that would be ideal. What happens when that balance is offset? What happens when all of a sudden the job requires long hours at the expense of training miles? Or family time? Hey, this is the “Da Fodder” struggle, all us guys who make up the field have real jobs, long hours, and families. Training takes the back seat to the other two. So missing workouts, especially if its more likely than random, can really put the damper on your fitness. What to do? There’s no training bible for that, it’s work it out the best way that I can. So I keep trying to get r’ done, and we’ll find out come Sept 21st how well I’ve done at coaching myself this season. So stay tuned, there’s not a day that goes by that I’m not thinking about dialing in the pressure on my tubbies, and given’r!

Miles ridden today, 44

Miles ridden 2008, 832 

Old School

Greetings Readers!

Ok, so I’ve been remiss in posting for the last few days, what can I say? I’ve been in the middle of a squal, a noreaster if you will,  a perverbial  s**t storm at work and I’ve been putting in the hours. Nuff of that, now on the the good stuff!

Check out this pic! I was trolling for some content this mornig and came across this photo of a cross race from days gone by. I love it!

Makes me want to go out and do runup repeats……… 

Cheers!