First Ride

I hope everyone has had a great week!  Things as usual continue to be pretty busy around here.

On Thursday I met up with Kelly as we both had a tempo run on our schedule.  We ran our warm up together for 20 minutes, then it was 15 minutes at tempo pace.  The run went really well and it was no trouble at all to hold the tempo pace.

I opted to knock my long run out on Friday in order to keep my weekend free for other fun stuff.  Being a cut back week my long run was shorter and more intense.  At 11:30 I looked out the window and it was raining!  I have no issues with running in the rain, but given that I had to go back to work afterward it wasn’t ideal.  Instead I ate my lunch and started thinking about how I would rearrange my weekend.  When I looked out the window again at 12:30 there was sun peaking through the clouds.  Time to hurry up and change and get out there!  My run included a 10 minute warm up, 3 x 10:00 intervals at a steady state pace followed by a couple of 3:00 intervals in zone 5.  Unfortunately my lunch hadn’t fully digested by the time I started running…but luckily it wasn’t a burger so I didn’t suffer from the same issues as my Tuesday run.  I had no issues meeting my goals during my intervals and it wound up being a terrific run.  Plus the sun continued to come out, so that was a bonus!

As for Saturday?  That was a truly exciting day.  The weather around here has been fairly nice and I’ve been thinking about taking my Cervelo out on the road.  You see, by the time I got D’s bike back in November the snow rolled in and I’ve only been riding on a trainer.  I really had no idea how the bike would feel once we started rolling on pavement.  I spent Saturday morning cleaning my ride up, lubing the chain, replacing the trainer tire with an outdoor tire, checking my saddle bag that it still had all the required gear in it and got ready to go.  It was out to Horse Creek in Cochrane for a ride!  It was nice and warm at 13C, but the wind was gusting up to 35 km/hr.  Oh well, time to suck it up!  Right away I could notice that I was feeling fit riding out there.  The uphills weren’t feeling nearly as hard…and I didn’t have a tail wind so that couldn’t have been it.  I knew that all of the work I’ve been doing on the trainer at Angie’s spin class has really been paying off.  On the flats I let loose and felt so powerful!  I rode 20 miles out and back and just for fun it seemed like the wind really picked up on the way back.  I just hunkered down and pedaled to get back as quickly as I could.  All in all, a great ride!  I’m really optimistic about riding this year and I definitely feel as though I am coming out of this winter as a stronger cyclist.  And I am super excited about my new ride.  I know it is a great fit and I am grateful every time I get on it that I was able to luck out with getting this bike.  I am really and truly in love with this bike and I’m excited for the upcoming adventures I will have riding it!!