A Fight in Several Rounds

23 mile ride, 2800m swim

Round 1 - Jessie versus the Alarm Clock:
The alarm went off around 5:30. I "woke up" to hit snooze and felt exhausted. It's amazing how days off can do this to you. Or else it was the wine. I lay in bed for a few minutes trying to figure out how I could reorder my day so that I could sleep in a little more. There was no way to fit in the ride any other time unless I didn't go to masters. But I wanted to go to masters since I tend to swim better there. I thought about just bagging the ride. But I have a short ride this weekend and I still have that goal hovering. And so I crawled out of bed and slowly got ready to ride.

Jessie wins. 1 Point.

Round 2 - Jessie versus the Wind and the Rollers:
I lap my watch every 15 minutes as a reminder to eat and/or drink. It also helps me afterwards to see how I did throughout the ride. I like to see that I've gone fast when I thought I was going fast instead of just having the overall average speed which is affected by things like warm ups and cool downs and Old Stage. It also helps me see progress. Since most of my rides all start with the same route, I can gauge how I'm doing. My first 15 minutes are spent doing the long gradual uphill of 36 out to North Boulder. I usually hit the intersection of Broadway and 36 in 15 minutes. Some days it's longer, some days it's shorter. Today it was longer. I was not surprised. As soon as I turned to head north, the winds came (from out of nowhere of course) and paid me a visit. I was having problems just riding that downhill section just past Broadway. The next 30 minutes or so were hell. The weather report claimed 5mph winds, but I don't know what the gusts were - definitely stronger than that. It was hard to ride in a straight line. I was hoping to get in 5-10 miles of Z3 since I was supposed to do this on Monday and I rode the trainer instead. But I just couldn't get my HR up. The highest I saw it in the first hour was 134, which is just barely Z3, and I was going uphill. I abandoned the effort. To compare with Saturday's Amazing Ride, on the second 15 minutes of my ride, I averaged 18.1mph. Today, I averaged 14.4mph. Pretty big difference. Riding east on Nelson was a welcome relief but I was starting to dread the upcoming rollers on 63rd especially with the wind. Fortunately the wind seemed to have died down by this point, but I struggled over the first few rollers. This is how it normally feels so I decided that Saturday must have been a fluke. Then suddenly, after about 50-55 minutes, I finally felt warmed up (or else I finally woke up) and suddenly everything became easier. And I could finally hit Z3. Of course, at this point, I only a few miles from home so there was no point in starting the Z3 set.

Wind wins. 0 Points. Rollers tie. 1/2 Point.

Round 3 - Jessie versus Work:
I somehow made it to work shortly after 8. Thankfully things have calmed down since Monday, which hit me like a slap in the face. I was able to unload a project onto someone else and seem to be indefinitely on hold with another. Everything else is pretty minor in comparison. There was no getting annoyed at anyone nor was there that really rushed feeling. So all in all, a good day. And it's Wednesday so the week is more than half over.

Jessie wins. 1 Point.

Round 4 - Jessie versus the Pool:
I actually made it to swimming on time, which has been exceedingly rare. I don't know how I used to make it to class when it started 15 minutes earlier. Anyhow, things started off well, but it seems like either everyone in my lane is getting a lot faster or I'm just slowing down. I've been having a hard time keeping up without some help. We started off with a few 100s on 1:45. I was able to do these with no problem, hitting them around 1:35. It was a hard effort, but I was able to do it repeatedly. We then got to 75s on 1:15. These did not go well. I think I made the first two and then had to start pulling. I didn't really stop pulling after this and still I was struggling. It was a really long set tonight; over 3000m if I had done everything, which I didn't. This is quite a bit more than we usually do, so I'm trying to use this as a measure of success. However, when everyone in the lane is swimming so much faster, it's hard to measure success.

Pool wins. 0 Points.

Round 5 - Jessie versus Laundry:
It's a really small pile since I was able to do most of it this weekend. You'd think I'd have done it on my day off, but did I really want to waste my day off time putting away laundry. I started it Tuesday, so technically, it's been sitting around less time than usual. So really, what's another day?

Laundry wins. 0 Points.

Total points: 2.5 out of 6. Not such good results. But on the plus side, I didn't get injured. I'm not really sick anymore. I didn't have any near death experiences. I had a good dinner. I'm going to bed early. So, another point for Jessie.