NICE DAY, NICE RIDE Tuesday, March 7, 2006

Druid Hill Park on a late Winter afternoon. The temperature is in the upper 40s and the sun is shining. The first ride of each training week is designed to be below the pace you intend to ride in the Century. Your muscles are supposed to "recover" from the workout you gave them in the long ride on Sunday. Something about not tearing the muscle you've built up. (I'm seriously amassing muscle. It's a genetic tendency to bulk up with exercise, runs in the Miller family. Nobody has ever seen it, though.)

At this point in the training schedule, the first ride of the week is only 10 miles long. Next week the first ride of the week increases to 15 miles. But today, a 10-mile ride, below pace, is the perfect formula to noodle over to Druid Hill Park and ride some laps. I'm taking full advantage of the "below the pace" concept. Even so, I rode faster today than I've ridden in the five weeks since the training started. Later in the week, I'll ride another 10 miles and I'll ratchet it up a notch. Then on Sunday, another 30-mile loop is on the schedule and I'll be in the battle once again. But today -- nice day, nice ride.

60 MILES IN A WEEK Sunday, March 5, 2006

On the Team in Training schedule, weeks end with a big ride on Sundays. Today, I rode just over 29 miles which pushes my weekly total to 62 miles. Last month, I rode 100 miles, this week 62. The training schedule is picking up. One more week at this pace, then we add 10 miles. My average speed on today's ride was 11 mph, so I'm slowly increasing my speed with the increased distance. The wind today was rough going out. It was coming out of the northwest and that is the direction in which we started. So, it was a battle. But when I made that turn at the top of the loop after climbing the hill on Caves Road to head southeast back into town with the wind is behind me, I felt like I had just rounded Cape Horn on HMS Surprise.

I've been told that cycling is all about rhythm. If you can keep a song in your head you can grind right up the hills. The words that keep going around and around in my head are from Radar Love, "No more speed, I'm almost there. . . Gotta keep cool, now, gotta take care . . . Last car to pass, here I go . . .and the line of cars goes down real slow . . .The road has got me hypnotized . . . I'm spinning into a new sunrise. . . " Maybe I'll look up the words. I'll be needing the whole song for Tahoe.