Rest Week - Wahoo!

Yippie, I survived another 3 week cycle of training with my new coach, Mike Schultz. I actually felt pretty good at the end of my third week, which was a very good feeling. I did a four hour singlespeed ride on Saturday and it was fantastic. I haven't been riding the SS much (mainly because its either too hard or too easy for a given workout) but I don't think its possible for me to have a bad ride on a SS...at least I have yet to have a bad one. I'm always smiling ear to ear at the end and I think I like the "hards" being really hard, and the "easys" being really easy.

I set a new personal best up the Potatopatch climb, 41:15 with an average HR of only 158. Holy shiznet...who's legs are these and how did they get on my body??? I think I can break 40 minutes with a slightly higher HR. I used a 32x19 on my 29er SS and it was a great climbing gear. I then headed over to Jacks River Fields, anxiously awaiting the beat down on the Mountaintown and Betty Gap climbs on the return trip. Surprisingly enough, M-town wasn't bad at all and Betty Gap wasn't that bad. It was hard, but in a good way...not in a bleed out your eyeballs way. Once back at Potatopatch, I flew back down to Bear Creek. I opted for the upper switchbacks but I felt like I was driving a Suburban down an ATV trail on my 29er for some reason. I just felt wide and cumbersome...definitely need to ride that bike more to get a better feel for it in the narrow, techy singletrack. The rest of Bear Creek was great though - just aim the bike downhill and hang on!

Once I returned to my car I realized I still needed to ride for another hour, so I headed back out to Pinhoti 2 and finished the day on that and some forest roads. Big grin!

Now I'm getting a nice reward of an easy week which will consist of lots of relaxing out in the sunshine. Our house is somewhat of a disaster area since we are replacing the wood floors - I'm contemplating moving my home office out onto the deck this week to get a healthy serving of Vitamin D!