A great training week

I capped off a great training week with an amazingly hilly ride today. Total distance was 39 miles with almost 2,000 feet of vertical ascention.

The ole hip flexors were pretty fired up the morning after 5 hours of paintball Saturday so it took 4 miles to get the right rhythm going. Thankfully that is when the hills set in. Towards the top of our second climb I was out of the saddle, looking at my rear cog and praying to God I wouldn't have to shift into my Granny Gear, which was three shifts away. Up comes another rider on in my group just stroking along, sitting down, high cadence pedaling. So I say to him as he passes me, "What you got cranks on that thing?" "You bet your sweet ass I do!"

Bastard.

So I drop a gear and start hammering on the incline. I get to the top of the current hill and look down , I'll be damned if I wasn't using my big crank up that hill. I was a whole crankset away from my Granny Gear. How cool is that.

Uncle Murphy showed up at our last rally point before the last hill. As we took off, I pushed down on my left pedal to start moving and then clip in my right foot. I was in a way to hard of a gear on an incline to start pedaling, so my balancing act looked great for whole two seconds I was vertical and then BAM down on my left side.

Oh I was fine, my knee and elbow took the hit though I think ego got the most bruising. I got up and pedaled over to the guys and they you know, acted all concerned while holding back the laughter. So I stopped and checked out the bike then myself. The Good Doctor says, "Well you got your prioritys straight, checking out your bike before yourself."

After that was my best cycling in a long time. Crushed the last hill, then maintained 24 miles an hour on the last 8 miles back to the car. It was simply effortless to maintain that speed.

While I was gone, Mighty Mo and Mistress went to the zoo so he could see the elephants, which he back to 4 times. He thinks elepants are dinosaurs. They sat in on a raptor show and a hawk flew over Mighty Mo touching his claws to his head. He was very excited.

Have a great Sunday.