Happy Hour(s) on the bike

Happy belated St. Patty's Day! My last year's cycling kit has green stripes on it, so wearing green was a no-brainer. Even so I had to keep pinching myself. The weather here has been insane (in a good great way). Basically, it's summer. Temps in the 70's every day, the sun shining, and I've even spotted a few mosquitoes. The best part? Being able to wear just a jersey and shorts-just as good great as I remembered it.

This weekend was the final block of hard training before Barry-Roubaix. I had a 2 hour killer interval session on Saturday and an endurance ride on Sunday. Saturday's workout actually had the words "killer" in it and I quickly realized why. Half-way through all I could think was that I was going to die. The workout ended up being 3 hours long, mostly due to the fact I could barely pedal afterwards. Sunday was much less intense but much longer.  I was able to ride with my BFF for a few hours of the ride and it was nice having the company. Plus we got to ride real bonafide singletrack. This was only my second time riding my Mukluk on dirt, and at first I was cornering like an idiot. Towards the end of my ride I got much more used to how it handled in the tight sections. The best part was when I would hit a sandy section. There's nothing better then having the ability to float right through with zero fishtailing.

The only bummer about the ride was that Juli had a tube in her rear wheel and got multiple flats. It's time for her to convert back to Stan's!!!  Even with stopping I ended up getting 6 hours of riding in, and made it back home with 20 minutes to spare before leaving for work. That gave me 5 minutes to take a shower and 15 minutes to eat everything in sight. Perfect! I didn't get home from work until 12:30 a.m. and thought that I would be exhausted but au contraire. Wide awake! I guess it's good training for 24 hour races :-)

My ride volume is much lower this week and with the nice weather it's going to be hard to resist going out on long rides. I'm listening to my coach though, because I really, really want to have a good race at Barry-Roubaix. I've done this race twice now and both times I rode alone the entire time! The first year I stopped to help a friend, and the second year I felt like poo.  In fact, I think last year was the year that I got passed by an old man who was on tour. This was after everyone else dropped me. You know you are having a bad race when someone who isn't even in the race manages to catch and pass you while loaded down with traveling gear. Now it just seems funny but at the time.....

Hopefully the third time will be the charm. No matter what I think it's going to be fun. I'm racing my Mukluk in the fat bike class, and I'm the only female. I have to represent!!!