Couple of firsts

Since we got a 40inch flat screen last week I get the hand-me-down 27 incher for the basement. Yayyyy I get tv for my riding. Most times I findmusic helps me more to ride, but the tv is nice somtimes too! In fact sometimes I just watch sports on the tv with my ipod blasting some rockin tunes in my ear. That's ultimately the best combo. Saturday we went shopping in the morning/afternoon so I did my long ride in the evening. Anyways I planned togo over 3 hours. The hardest thing I find with long workouts and races is visualizing the finish. It's hard to get on the trainer knowing you'll be on that sucker for 3 hours plus. I have to learn to break it up into shows or somthing. Anyways sat. night is hockey night in Canada, so I put on the hockey game and watched Edmonton loose boooooo (yes I'm a Edmonton/Calgary fan, YES IT IS POSSIBLE!!!) but it helped accomplish the goal. It helped me get through 3:20of riding time, that's a new indoor ride record for me. When I got off I wasn't as sore as I thought I'd be, I could have easily gone to 4hours +. That'sa good sign as I probably will be riding up to 5 hours before spring.

Last night Greg and I met at the pool. I planned on doing another benchmark swim Chuckie style. Yayyyyy Greg agreed to do the same thing. He's just a touchfaster than me so I knew it'd help to push me, also make it hurt more. I hoped I wouldn't go to hard at the start. We did a longer warmup than I'm usedto, he convinced me that I should. I didn't want to loose the form feel, but agreed to do a bit more drill. It really payed off. We started the 400 and I right away dropped a body length behind him, but really fought to stay in contact. First 100, got to the wall 1:32, woahhhh little too quick I'm gonna really pay for that later!! For the next 100s I couldn't get the splits since I had to really push hard off the walls to keep on Greg(I wasn't swimmingin his draft, in the lane next to him) so I managed to keep just a touch behind him. Wow what a difference it makes to have that carrot dangling jussssstbarely out of reach. We finished and I saw 6:26!! The last bench mark 400 had been 6:42. NICCCCCCCCCe HIGH FIVVVVVE(in that Borat voice). I was toast,in the last 100m my arms were starting to get numb from the Oxygen debt, lol. I had kept up with Greg, but I don't think he was going quite as hardas I was. So we did a 100m easy and he wanted to do a 200 and 100 TT as well. So I figured I would go along although I didn't expect too much. The 200mwent ok it hurt a lot and my arms felt like lead so I dropped back 5 secs by the end I think to Greg. My time was 3:11, not bad. Then 100m easy and into the 100m tt. I pushed off the wall and immediately I knew my arms were back. YOu know that feeling where you know it's go time!! I stayed beside Gregthe whole time even moved ahead at times. I felt so strong, weird how in the 200 I was destroyed but somehow felt strong again for the 100. We came into the wall exactly side by side. 1:25!!!! that might not be fast for some, but that's huge huge huge for me. I've never done that fast a 100 and aftertwo tts already!! Wow that felt good.

Today I think I'll be doing another hour FTP test for Chuckie, he wants me to keep a more steady pace through-out. The first time I did it I shifted up 20min in so this time I'll try to keep that upper gear for the whole hour around 250-255W. That's going to hurt, I'llneed the ipod tunes definatly. I'll let you know how it goes. Cheers,

DP