wknd rides

saturday started cold and tight. 9a, temps in the high 2o's rising to mid 30's by end of ride, steady 20mph wind from the wnw. Rob joined-up for this one, he was riding well, while 90mins into the ride i was struggling to get the HR up w/o the legs feeling like hot lava was coursing through 'em. found myself worried about today's ride 90mins into saturday's ride, not a good place to be... heard about good powdah in the north country, could grab the board and head for the hills?... but, here on the coast temps were most excellent for getting the road rides in, have to see it through and hope for the best. pedal. pedal. pedal...

woke-up today to more sunshine, did a quick strength workout and felt decent. made a big breakfast, hung-out w/Jenn... at noon andy rolled-down on a borrowed '99 lemond beunos aires all fired-up for some time on the road. by 1p it was 40, winds still near 20, real nice day. i haven't taken much rest in the past couple wks and with yesterday's stuggles wasn't hoping for much out of the legs, but today's weather was inspiring. andy pushed the pace early and i struggled on the climbs like crazy. then right around 90mins into today's ride the lava in the legs finally burned off and i was free. free to just do whatever i wanted to on the bike, it became a child's toy. golden legs. right in the middle of a long wk in a base phase. wham! there they were. wild. an hour before i was deep in the pain cave, struggling to hold andy's wheel, then wham! never had that happen before. w/o a training partner i wonder if i would have been able to push through like that? i don't think so...

i'd begun to get worried a bit as i hadn't had any break-throughs for months it seems... was wondering if i'd been training right. too hard? too weak? not enough rest? not at the right time? blah, blah, blah, all that crap. then today andy started the ride on fire, just hammered it out and somewhere in the middle of the pain, it completely disappeared and in it's place was golden legs. the longer i ride, the more surprised i become at how the body reacts - maybe someday i'll figure-out how to master the peaks and valleys. but man, days like this sure are fun. they make it all worth while. the cupcakes jenn had waiting at home were pretty damn awesome too. nothing washes hammer soy down like a couple beers, i mean cupcakes.

oh yeah, winds were so bad up north on the mtns a lot of lifts were on hold. guess i made the right decision to stay home and stick it out! only 5 more days till a full day of rest. shit, maybe even two days of rest.

the academy awards are actually pretty entertaining tonight. imagine that. and i heard the ratings were projected to be bad becuase it was all "independent films." in my opinion, most are not independent per say, but "less mainstream." either way, thank goodness.