OUTSIDE 2011!!

Yesterday I was able to get a nice easy 40 mile ride outside with a few teammates. The first ride back outside, especially on the road, after 6-8 weeks indoors is always a nice treat. Its really tough to have a bad day that day. The other nice thing is everyone is just there to spin and do whatever. There's no prescription to follow for the day or anything.

We did Jim's regular Morris donut shop ride. Its an out and back ride for the most part. Started off a touch chilly and overcast but I was just fine after about 10 minutes in. Wind was blowin' steady out of the SW at 16-18 mph. We rode our cross bikes with road wheels and fenders to keep any grime your back. This time of year here in the Mid-west thats pretty much what you want roll with since there's no telling how much snow run-off you might have to deal with. Not only that, but, they use a TON of salt on the roads here during the winter and the cross bike is just better equipped to take the grit and grime from the road.

By the time we had chilled and started to head back the sun had burned the thin cloud layer off a bit and brightened everything up a touch. Once we turned west out of Morris we had a nice tailwind all the way back. Exactly how I like the first ride back on the road after Dec and Jan. My ride was mostly all zone 2, except for a nice little dig I took when my coach, @otb4evr, told me to "push" the hill. So I did, he came with me, took a pull after the hill and then waived me through. Its nice to get affirmation out on the road for the work you've been putting doing indoors. I've never in the past done this ride during this time of year with such ease and low heart rate the whole time. One of the most enjoyable parts of the whole ride was to be able to ride and talk about the different aspects and purposes of the variety of training workouts he has me doing. We spoke a little bit about some specific drills to start mixing into my "easier" days. 

Its nice to be able to do that on the bike riding side by side where he could actually have me doing some examples and be able to show me the "whys" and "hows" of some of the drills. As opposed to just explaining and discussing them in emails back and forth.




Looks like we are supposed to hit 60 sometime this week. Not to worry, temps will come back down before they go back up to stay. I think the year we had the really shitty spring we had a 65* day in Feb and everybody thought it was going to be a killer spring season. So, I'll just take it day by day as we start pushing toward the warmer weather. March will be chock full of races with the Kenosha Spring training Crits 3 weekends and The SCW Autobahn race near the end of the month. I've already registered to double that race, I'll probably double up some of the Kenosha races as well.