Finally A Group Ride and Riding Partner

I finally did a group ride (my first for the season). I drove the 60 miles to Charlottesville to make it to the 10am group ride. It had been two years since I did one of the group rides in this area. The rides are bigger and faster now! It is amazing. The group rides have gone from 15 or so to 25+ riders. I bet more will come as spring approaches. During the group ride I got many efforts in and some good paceline work. The highlight, though, of the day was meeting a rider named Amity (rides for the Van Dessel factory VA team). She was the only girl, not including me, that was able to hang on for awhile to the very strong UVA guys. Amity was taking monster pulls during the paceline work. In fact, I believe she was pulling the hardest! I instantly thought to myself "Yes, a new training partner!", and we became just that, training partners. We rode together the next day in the mountains on Skyline Drive.
Amity is a tough character, and has a very easy going personality. She drove 45 miles to ride with me Sunday! During her normal training week she will wake up at 4am or so and ride 3 hours to work in the dark and 3 hours back from work in the dark...over a mountain each way, and yes she has had her battery operated light go out on her before! She does this ride a few times a week, and still has enough energy to do the group ride on Saturdays! She is something special, and she is going to be very strong this season!

Thanks for reading,
Rachel

Stupid In The Wind

At first I had a hard time deciding if todays ride was brave or stupid. In hind sight, the ride was stupid dangerous. Weather.com stated (through a wind advisory) that winds would be 25-35 mph sustained and occasional gusts around 50 mph. The word "occasionally" is in the eye of the beholder, each to their own. I believe that every few seconds is not occasional, that is frequent. My ride was supposed to be 6 hours, but I "only" went 5 hrs 20min. Some of the gusts blew me around so hard that I got a full adrenaline pump, and got rather scared, yet I remained stupid by continuing the ride. I had to go around fallen trees, a few trees were close to falling on me, and I was almost blown into the gutter many times. When I set off, my grandmother was not too worried because she thought I would try the ride for about an hour then come back and ride on my stationary trainer. When I got back and told her what I did she seemed surprised to see me alive!
I am up for a recovery week. It will be nice to not ride as much as I have the past few weeks. It is a time to recharge the batteries for another block of training, and get some of my college work done.
Check out cyclingnews.com to see my teammate, Lozza, results in the Australian track national championships. She won the scratch race, and got a couple of 5th places in other track events!!! She is incredibly fast, and I can't wait until she comes to the states.

Rachel

Training and Training Some More!

I have been training up a storm getting ready for the 2008 season! Today was my longest day of the week. It was an endurance ride of 6 hours (90mi.) which capped off another 20+ hour week. I do not exactly live on "flat" terrain. The longest flat stretch of road that I can ride is about a 1.5 mile and slightly downhill. So going down and up, down and up can get tiring after awhile considering I do not coast (unless I'm cornering). My coach, Aidan Charles, has really helped me alot in giving me proper training. I have improved so much since I have had him as my coach.

On the other side of training, the Super Bowl (or as I like to call it Super Bowel...well alot of chips and dips are consumed). So anyway the Super Bowl weekend brings out many "interesting" people on the roads before the game. During todays ride I had to stop and get some water at a convenient store, and while I was in there a guy who looked like he had seen better days was buying beer. That is fine except when he was reaching for his wallet his hands were shaking up a storm, his eyes were glazed over, and he could not communicate in complete sentences...not that he ever could. The cashier did not even blink when she sold him the beer. My thought was to get the hell out of there before this guy could figure out how to turn his car on and start driving. Other than that I only had to use my middle finger once. I live in an area where one "rotten egg" lurks among the rest. Meaning, many of the drivers on the road do not cause me harm, but there are occasional ones that believe that they should be the only ones on the road.

Thanks for reading,
Rachel

I am getting old!

Okay. I did my first 100 miler yesterday in oh, let's just say it's been a while. By mile 85, my shoulder was absolutley killing me. What is wrong with me? My left knee started to get a twinge. My hips were hurting b/c they were so stiff and tight. Maybe it's b/c of the cold weather. Or maybe I am just getting closer to the geriatric field. Okay , i think I might be a littel harsh on myself. Anway, my quads hurt so bad. I know I did more intensity this week.. but MAN! I couldn't even climb those little incline hills that I am really the most powerful. So, as I write you today, my back hurts now. Low back.. It's actually been hurting for a while, so if anyone has any advice on helping with a tight, stiff, frozen low back..I do encourage comments. ..Holli