Improvement

Among other things I did this week, I went along on a group ride with some of the members of the EPC multisport club.  When I left the house, it was 45 and sunny and I didn't notice the wind.  As I started driving to Morrison to meet the group, the sky was darker, very light snow started falling, the wind was blowing my car around the highway and I watched the temperature drop to 38.  Not that 38 was unrideable, I was just expecting a nice sunny 45 degree ride.

Once we started riding we were heading right into the wind with an occasional gust from the side.  I felt like many times I might fall off my bike!  After riding as easy as we could up to Golden, we then climbed Lookout Mountain.  I did this ride 4 weeks ago and timed myself and measured my power up the climb.  I wanted to see how my power compared (and hopefully time) when I rode up this time.  Some of the guys stopped to use the rest room at the start of the climb.  I and 2 others kept going.  Soon I was riding all alone up the climb ahead of the others.  The wind was probably the worst I've ever ridden in.  The climb was pretty fun, except for turning around the corners and getting smacked in the face with a strong headwind.  I thought for sure some of the guys would catch me quickly, but only one did towards the top.  My time was a few seconds slower than last time (which considering how strong the wind was, I was pretty happy with) and my norm power was 180 for the 28:30 min climb vs 173 from last time. I just hope next time it is not so windy!

Descending was miserable for me.  I only have my time trial bike and it is not meant for climbing and especially not descending.  Most of the others stayed to ride up 1 more time and I was fine with the idea of riding up again but not descending again.  So next time I'll ride up twice, as long as it isn't insanely windy! And now I not only need to get a mountain bike, I also want to get a road bike.

It was nice to see that I had improved a decent amount in the last 4 weeks.  Now I just have to continue with the improvement.

Frito had a rough week.  Friday was his 5 year adoption day.  He still has the running speed he had when I first got him, but his is now better behaved and his spots are not as bright as the are now covered with white hairs from old age.  He had a rough couple days.  On Friday Adam took him to the vet because one of his eyes was oozing with puss.  Turns out he had pink eye!  Who knew dogs could get that?!  Despite the vet saying that it is not that contagious for dogs, Mickey had pink eye on Saturday.  So far with the prescription eye drops it seems to be clearing up.  Saturday, Adam took out the roller blades and ran with Mickey and Frito.  Frito demonstrated just how fast he can go.  But then later he was limping and walking funny.  The pads on a couple of his paws were scraped up and bleeding.  So he got his paws wrapped with Ace bandages.  He sure looked cute but I felt so sorry for him.  He still isn't walking normally and will have to take a break from running.

I'm having some trouble determining what I want to do for my races this year.  I have several races planned, but some others still need to be filled in.  I was thinking of doing Xterra West in Las Vegas, but the general consensus is that the course is not that nice and it's not really worth going.  So then I thought I might do Xterra South Central in Waco, TX, but then I thought, do I really want to spend money to go to TX?  It's supposed to be a nice race and the flights (into Austin) are cheap, but then you have to add in the $100 charge each way for the bike to fly...then it's not so cheap anymore.  So that's a maybe.  I am also thinking about doing the Xterra East race in Richmond, but again, travel budget concerns are a consideration.  I would like to figure it out soon, but there are so many things to consider first.  I guess other than this I mostly have my schedule set.  Mostly.