A solid week

After studying 24/7 for exams last week (which inevitably meant doing minimal training), I got back into the swing of things with a solid week of training. It is always a bit of a shock returning to hard training, even after only short breaks. Getting back to hard workouts was frustrating as my body had to remember what this feels like (and it didn't like it at first!), and by the end of the week I was totally exhausted.
On Sunday I entered the Windsor park crit race, my first crit race in about 2 years. I wasn't really sure what to expect. It was a short (900 m), flat square that we rode around for 40 minutes plus 5 laps to finish the race. I have no idea how many laps we ended up doing, but my corners got pretty good by the end! It didn't start quite like I had hoped... the pace was high right from the start, and I hung on to the back of the pack for about 3 laps, then got dropped : ( . For the next 20 minutes I was soloing and suffering through, and being lapped by the lead pack didn't exactly help my confidence. But, when a group of 3 riders came by me I stuck on their wheels and worked with them for the remainder of the race. Once I had someone to draft, the race became a lot more enjoyable and I wasn't struggling to keep their pace. This race was a good eyeopener for me and let me know where my bike fitness currently is. It was also good practice for olympic distance races in terms of racing hard for an hour and riding with unfamiliar people. I am looking forward to doing more crit races and am hoping each one gets a little better.

And awesome job Ellen, who did her first crit race ever, and Hilary, who lapped me twice!!

(picture by Brian at Oak Bay Bikes)

First day of "summer"

It is officially my first day of summer today! I had a crazy week of exams, having all 4 in a row from Wednesday to Saturday. It is always such a relief when final exams are over... no matter what, you walk out of the last one with a big stupid smile on your face that you just can't get rid of! So today is the start of summer for me, although, it is a little dreary out.
I'm looking forward to being able to focus more on training now. I am running the TC 10 k in two weeks and am excited to have a good run and start gearing up for olympic distance. My first triathlon is in Dallas at the beginning of June, and this will also be my first completed olympic distance race. Last year, I raced an olympic distance in Sooke, but got a flat tire half way through the bike and wasn't able to finish. So I still have that first one to get under my belt. I'll admit, the idea of racing hard for 2 hours seems a little daunting... but lots of other people have done it and survived, right??

A fresh start

Ok, I really failed at the whole blogging thing last year...so I'm going to try again! Stay tuned... hopefully I will actually have something interesting to say...