Motivation and training

Everyone has a love of morning pics, so this was my Friday (not riding, but walking the dog pic) at the lake near our house. Thursday was even more picturesque, but no camera on Thursday.

This is Bill (Shanes father with all the gear for the night in Geelong)


For the road trip to Geelong, Bill who never travels light had one suitcase, about 5 bags of stuff (not sure what exactly but I know there were shoes, laptop???!!!, an approx 10m long power lead for the laptop??? and...well...just stuff), a toolbox, pillow and neck pillow, jackets, thermos and bidons and this was one night! Me on the other hand who was racing had clothes bag, foodbag, bag for gear needed on the day and toolbox (oh and two bikes , windtrainer, two sets of wheels and the back wheel for the windtrainer).

Bill is handy though, just in case you need a kitchen sink on the day.....you can bet he will have one!

I have just had one tough weekend on the bike, went out with the fast bunch yesterday on a very undulating circuit and I have never ridden so fast......the final section mainly downhill, we hardly went under about 42-45kph (and not exaggerating), speeds up to 62kph...it was fast....overall 90km and the middle 60 were just like racing. The main culprits were Ben, Dave A, Andrew A and Gary. I was hanging on up a couple of hills and on the way home looking for bigger gears. Today was again very fast. Gary and Andrew A and I said "we are all tired from yesterday so wont be going too fast". Well I did do a fast turn up the first hill and from there Andrew and Mike kept the pace high on the way out with Dave and Mick helping on the way back in. My legs actually feel better today then after yesterdays ride. I had to do some SE efforts when I got back into town so rode into the huge headwind at a cadence of around 60-70 for 3 minutes with 3 min rest, I did this x 3, so have got 185km for the 2 days and I feel ok at the moment. Tomorrow is a day off the bike.

I guess my training is for National Masters Road Champs in about 5 weeks, so will have to get some time on the TT bike and find some hard countryside.

I have found it difficult lately being motivated to push myself sometimes. I train a lot on my own so I have to find a system and I think I will SMS friends the day before I have a specific ride and they might like to join me to do some efforts and get a longer ride in. There are days where it is hard to just get on the bike. After this weekend though I can see that my training is helping me and so it makes it exciting to get on the bike and work through the efforts to get stronger. I guess I should expect ups and downs and don't get me wrong but I love getting fitter and reaping the benefits, but some days knitting seems like a better way to fill in spare time.....