Finally

Yesterday, I finally had the type of workout that I've been waiting for...it was fun!  It was this week's brick, put off for hangover purposes and coming the day after accidentally running 10 miles, but it felt great.  I biked 40 and for about 20 of it, was just cruising, crouched down and remembering all the reasons that I love biking.  The run that followed was still awkward as hell, and I could have used some additional fuel, but I still ran 5 miles in just over 40 minutes, so I'm pretty impressed with myself.  Quite a change from last week.  But I did figure out a few more things about biking, and I guess the training is not just physical.  For instance, there are 27 gears for a reason.  I sometimes get so tired I forget to shift, or I wait too long out of some sense of shame in downshifting (no idea where that comes from).  Yesterday, I not only remembered that I had all these gears, and remembered that they actually all work on my new bike, I used them.  I decided that burning leg pain on the very first climb of the ride wasn't the smartest idea if I wanted to be able to ride 30, 40, or 50 miles more, plus tack on a run at the end.  This isn't a sprint, it's ok to slow down if it means saving something for the long haul.  I think it actually gave me a much better, more consistent overall pace yesterday, but I've also given up looking at the clock, so I don't know for sure.  I've also discovered that I can deal witht the wind...just downshift, keep your head down, and plug on through.  And the good thing about a headwind on an out and back ride is that unless there's some monumental shift in the weather, you'll have a tailwind coming home.  And as a final bonus, I rode most of the way up my street yesterday.  That may not sound like much, but I've been considering my street as the ultimate hill training portion of each ride and therefore not too concerned that I can't make it all the way.  You see, my street climbs 300 vertical feet in less than a tenth of a mile.  Using my rough trigonometry skills, that makes it just about a 25-30% grade above horizontal.  For perspective, the first time I rode up it I had a backpack full of books on...my front wheel came off the ground.  So when I can ride 80% of it before having to stop and let my body deliver oxygen to my quads, I feel pretty good.