Nothing But Hills, Baby!

Well, I had good intentions this last week of getting to the pool, but it just didn't happen. For some reason I am just not motivated to swim at the moment. I know I need to, but it's such a hassel to get everything ready, then drive to the gym, swim, change, and come back home. So what did I do this past week?

Monday - 6 mile run
Tuesday - Yoga
Wednesday - 20.20 mile bike ride
Thursday - 13.38 mile bike ride
Friday - nothing - my allergies were bothering me big time and I just didn't feel well

Saturday - This is where the hills come into play. Our group ride with TNT this week was in a hilly part of town and that was the intended focus of the ride. It wasn't really about the distance this week. The coach wanted us to focus on proper technique when going up and down hills. He told us that going up some of these hills we needed to go slow (like 5 mph slow) and just focus on the pedal stroke. He wanted it to be hard, but didn't want us to attack the hill and get our breathing all out of whack. Which was a good thing for me.

The congestion I have right now is driving me bananas. I was afraid if I pushed myself too hard on the hills I would have a coughing fit and not make it up the rest of the hill. Turns out I was fine. I'm thinking a combination of allergies and exercised induced asthma is hitting me right now. Before the ride, I had several people ask me if I was really going to ride. I guess I sounded that bad. During the ride - nothing. I was perfectly fine. Didn't cough once. As soon as we were done - coughing fit. It's driving me batty.

The ride itself was great. We did some decent hills. We even went into a neighborhood that had some really big hills. None were harder that I've been on before, but let's just say that going 5mph was about as fast as I could go on some of those hills. I know there will be big hills in Tahoe, so hill practice is good. When I was done with the ride, my computer showed 23.6 miles. That's almost half of what we did two weeks ago, but I'm guessing it's kind of like in marathon training. Every now and then you have a back down week for recovery.

The rest of the day was spent shopping for the kids some new clothes for the summer (especially shorts). Friday's temperature here was in the 90s. I think we may be skipping spring this year. Then I drugged myself up on allergy medicine and spent the evening in the recliner. I'm thinking that I may take today as another rest day to hopefully get rid of the cough and congestion, even though I really want to get out on the bike. It looks like it's going to be a beautiful day. I hate when this happens.