Gold star for the week.

Well I have whinging about how "hard training is" poor me....and this last week I have nailed a great week (despite the horrendous winds). I have made a couple of fundamental changes namely:-

1. Riding a route that includes a good coffee stop and USING IT....I had been heading out on 2-3 hour rides with no stopping and finding them a bit gut wrenching, but if you add a coffee stop (in my case at about the 1.5 - 2 hr mark, it makes the ride so much better.

2. Working hard on the intervals as I LOVE them......seriously I do, the feeling of your HR going at 85-02% is great. Improvement needs some real commitment, if you are going to do intervals, you have to give them your best and you feel better for it.

3. Last week I did all of my core strength work so I gave myself a gold star in my training log.

I also think a big change was to change the times I ride, I think "knocking over a Morning ride" as opposed to having your training "hanging over your head" all day, gives you a fresh start and a feeling of accomplishment.

I laughed tonight on my ride, as I did efforts this morning and a "spin" this afternoon on my time trial bike and I rode past a paddock full of young calves and another with some lambs and then I saw a rabbit tearing across the road like he was on a mission and in my mind I was all gushy about how wonderful nature is.....and how cute animals are...then my piece of solitude was DESTROYED by the magpie that has made his home along our RAAF base loop as he nose dived for my head.........nothing beats looking around to see a HUGE magpie flying behind you about one metre away from your head. Screaming at this guy just didnt work (I think he was laughing on the inside)

Spring it is the season for magpie swooping, there are three vicious ones that we have found so far on our rides, they peck helmets and land on helmets with a mission to attack (not like the rabbit mission of running.....). There are two types of magpies around here, the ones that swoop as a warning and the ones that are more like suicide bombers that have one thing on their minds and if you are riding along unaware and in your own world thinking about life, a BIG FAT magpie colliding with your helmet will bring you into reality very quickly. Dangers of magpies are; they scare you, they can hurt you and can distract you from watching where you are going, which we all would agree is not a good thing.

I have been doing a lot of cadence work lately and I must admit I am beginning to find it much easier. I am a bit of a masher which I have found doesn't work too well in hills and when your legs get too tired. I have even been taking my camera out for some pics on the way.

Finally the last thing I did was rearranged the sound system in the shed and hooked up some old (but great) speakers with my Kmart CD player for playing when on the wind trainer and the sound quality is a zillion times better and so it is a party on the windtrainer now compared to having the volume lower before to avoid killing any more of my favorite songs.

With my new passion for training, I am already looking forward to tomorrow which is two hours on the bike (try to ride at 100rpm as much as possible). Thursday is high cadence intervals in a bigger gear on the trainer (in party central....).