Super slacker

If you’re familiar at all with the rotation of posts in this blog, you’re probably wondering where all the hill repeats posts are… right? Well, there’s a quick answer: there aren’t any. Due to an amazingly lame combination of late work meetings, lung problems, wildfires and doctors appointments, I’ve only managed to do one hill repeats night in the past month! Try not to faint away in horror, please. Believe it or not, this is something that I’m extremely bummed about. Moab (crazy ride I’ve been training for … remember?) has over 9,000 feet of climbing – most of it frontloaded into that little gem called the Big Nasty. I’m positive that the end of this season is definitely not the time to be slacking on my hills training, but apparently my boss, my body and quite possibly the universe doesn’t agree.

Besides the need for more preparation, I actually (as we’ve noted before) really enjoy doing the climbing nights. The one time recently that I made it to hills and skills (8/4 – stats below), I had a killer time on the “hard loop.” I definitely didn’t rock as many repeats as the strongest riders, but I conquered the Concepcion->La Paloma->Evil Side of Westwind loop a full four times before degenerating into Al death threats. Surprisingly, given the number of skips I’ve had, I even still had energy for the “empty the tank” sprint on the way back. I’m sure the fast people in front of me were just worn down from their extra climbing loops, but I swear I almost caught one! More importantly, that endorphin high (oh-so useful after a stressy week at the office) lasted through the ride, through Chipotle and back to the house — where I promptly passed out by 9:45. Man, could I use some of that this week!

Point of the story? You’re not missing a bunch of posts — I’m missing rides. End of release cycle at work is always crazy, and leaving at 4:30 is tough. I’m still fighting with the docs over what could be wrong with my lungs, and can only cross my fingers, wait and hope that they’ll figure it out soon. I am definitely trying to make these last few repeats before our event day though (universe willing), so I’ll keep you posted. Ha, posted… terrible blog pun…

Power ups

For my first night back at hill repeats in awhile (7/21), the friendly folks at IPF (aka evil Al) decided to up the ante. Instead of just working on my “most favoritest thing ever,”  we’d combine two ol’ favorites and add zooming fast descents into steep inclines which, of course, require getting out of the saddle. Sounds like the most fun ever had on two wheels, right?! Yeah… I thought so too. To be fair, the coaches did give everyone an easier option. The C-pluses through Es had four 3-hill loops of short and steep climbs, while the As and Bs were sent up and back Concepcion – middle ring only style. As a self proclaimed solid C-minus who’d taken two weeks off repeats (due to work, of course), I was sorely tempted to roll with the A-B team. A good amount of harassment from teammates and coaches alike, I decided to give the hard mode a try… at least once.

With a glare at the ever-pressuring universe, I rolled out onto Concepcion for the first round. Truth be told, my performance was something of a mixed bag. My speed up the first climb was pretty average and I built up some decent momentum on the descent, but I didn’t downshift nearly enough heading into Westwind. Whatever grade that bastage of a hill possesses, it cannot be accomplished by me in my lowest mid-ring gear… even while standing. As my speed slowed to nearly negative, I began frantically dropping gears – until I dropped them right off the cassette and embedded the chain in my frame. Sweet. I managed to unclip before faceplanting, but was forced to abandon the rest of the climb and just head into the descent. I did manage the entirety of the Viscaino climb (despite additional downshift fail), but my persistant breathing issue led to some incredibly exciting panting along the way.

I couldn’t really call hard mode quits with only a high level of utter fail behind me, so I decided to press on. Round two was pretty much a direct repeat of round one, with bonus skateboarders to ruin my descent into evil Westwind. I managed to get into my little ring, but the loss of momentum into the climb wasn’t enough to hit the summit. Grrrrrr. After some labored panting recovery time (and possibly a packet of luna moons), I rolled out again for round three. This loop went a bit better. I sacrificed some power into the descent and dropped into the granny gears before I ever hit Westwind. I had to stand up earlier, but was able to keep turning the cranks all the way to the summit. Finally. 

I celebrated by… finishing the third loop climb up Viscaino (successfully, thank you very much), and heading back out for a fourth. No sense wussing out now, right? I continued my good climb karma and hit the summit of all three hills without incident (assuming you don’t count huffing and puffing constantly). As I gasped my way back to a normal heart rate, we waited for everyone to regroup in the parking lot for a demonstration on cornering. Jamii and Al gave an excellent talk on how to turn — without falling (always important).

Who even knew you could demo from a standstill?

Everyone took a few turns (pun intended) at low speeds before heading back to the park. With four rounds of difficult climb time under my belt, I was definitely ready for some Chipotle-reward dinner!

Get up, stand up

Last week’s (yeah, I’m a whole week behind. Work’s been busy, sue me!) hill repeats focused on my “very favoritest thing ever” — standing climbs. And by “favoritest thing ever,” I mean “thing I most hate to do always”… unless you’re one of my coaches reading this, in which case I totally really mean “favorite” (because everyone knows that coaches like to make you practice whatever it is you dislike). Of course the the loud bitching I did at the summit of each loop is probably not going to fool them… hopefully the weren’t paying attention!

We rode in the same general area as last week’s hill repeats, but the trainers chose a new street for our climb. The new location, La Paloma, is actually a fairly mild hill… for the first 90%. The last 10% or so pops up pretty significantly in grade, which means you have to get your hiney out of the saddle to make the top. As much as I’d rather sit and spin, I decided to try and do the entire night in my middle front ring, which meant that standing was definitely required. At the end of the day, working hard now will make the event easier, right? So I chugged uphill, huffing and puffing (even passing a couple folks), and hit the summit wheezing (and cursing). I pretty quickly decided that the climb “wasn’t that bad,” descended and swung around to do it all over again.

Lap two actually seemed a bit easier. I managed to hold off from standing until a bit farther up the hill – keeping my energy up and heart rate down longer. This meant that I was “jogging uphill” a shorter distance, so I felt more relaxed (even though my heart rate data indicates I was working pretty much equally hard). Not surprisingly, laps three and then four (darn latecomers got off easier with one less lap) were tougher. I managed to keep the trick of not popping up until absolutely necessary, but my legs got tired toward the end. I did do all four rounds out of the saddle, although I dropped to the baby gears (not the lowest ones!!) for one.

Once the “don’t be a lazy tail, literally” abuse was done, we all headed down to Foothill College for bike rocking and emergency stop training. Bike rocking was an interesting exercise. In order to get us used to the idea of moving our bikes, the trainers had us exaggerate the movement at low speeds in laps. We had to get the outside of one leg to touch the inside of the opposing side of the saddle. Sound confusing? Yep, I thought so too. Pretty much, get your outer right thigh to touch the left side nose of your seat, then alternate. You have to forcibly push the bike down and shift your weight a lot to counter balance. As I a) hate standing and b) have approximately negative arm strength, I took while to get the hang of this one. I did eventually get it… but I’m not sure I’ll be good at it any time soon.

The emergency stop concept was much easier (and useful!) to grasp. Hit both brakes hard and shift your butt behind the saddle to keep the back wheel on the ground.  We watched a demo, then did several round of practice. The assistant troublemakers (helper trainers) stood at one end of the parking lot. We took turns racing directly at them and then slamming on the brakes at randomly given signals. I managed to get a good couple of skid marks on the pavement, but need to work on shifting my weight even farther. Of course I have to wonder how likely it is that I’ll actually remember that should I ever actually need it. Hopefully we never find out!

Dark fell pretty quickly after braking training, so we headed back to our launch point… with one more climb thrown in (just for extra fun). Our small horde descended onto Chipotle shortly after. At least we were rewarded for our work!

Garmin data (with somewhat useless lap info) follows below. You’ll have to hold off until tomorrow for the buddy ride fiasco, as it’s already after 10pm and I’ve got a 48 miler early tomorrow morning (blame work! I swear!). More soon.

Reverse downhills

Last Tuesday found a good portion of our team back down in Los Altos for week number two of Hills and Skills. For extra bonus fun, this session including the ultimate in slow-climber humiliation devices: a timed climb. In theory, by timing ourselves now and then again in a month (and again in another month, etc.) we’ll be able to quantify our success, feel good about ourselves, and just generally have proof that the training is working. This all hinges, of course, on the assumption that we’ll actually improve over the coming weeks (and that the trainers don’t just cheat the number sheets — I still haven’t seen my time!)… so I’m hoping that they have anti-depression safeguards in place on the off chance that I somehow end up slower a month from now.

Moving on. We started the night with a few quick laps up and down a short, flat stretch of road to get warmed up. As Tuesday was the first hot day/night in… well, forever… that really didn’t take too long. By the time we were ready to start climbing (Concepcion again to start), I was pretty sure that I’d moved past “warm” and onto “overheated.” Shockingly, our trainers had little sympathy to offer when I pointed this out. My helpful commentary earned me the Al equivalent of a “Ya mule! Up the hill!” (actually those might have been his exact words). And off I went.

We climbed Concepion twice while our trainer team worked out the timer administrative details. Everyone was given a pink sticky name tags for their helmet (I can only assume that we’ll be traveling SO fast uphill that only big pink stickers would be readable), and then put in a line by some order known only to the coaches. As an aside, my first two trips up and downhill were pretty ok.  They were slow, but considering I was sick all week… not terrible. We were fired uphill in 40 second intervals (not literally), with instructions to call our name (apparently the nametags were only a backup?) to the coach at the summit to record our time. Everyone was then to keep circling at the top of the hill to stay warm, and we’d move on as a group.

My climb went fairly well. I start much quicker up than the last two rounds – amazing what the threat of a timer will do for ya – and kept a good pace for the first half or so. Somewhere right around the middle of the hill, my body remembered that it was sick and tired (literally) and I started to slow down significantly. Still, there’s something to be said for really knowing your route. You know exactly how far you’ve got to push before you can take it easy again. Concepcion really isn’t a particularly long or hard climb… so I kicked my tail into gear and hammered to the top as best as I could. It was probably still a bit slow, but hey – that just means my next test will show even more improvement, right?!

Once everyone had finished the time trial, we headed over to another hi… ahem… excuse me. Another “reverse downhill” for some more climbing fun. (Thanks for that little gem, Al! Gotta love coach-speak.) We did two trips up and down Purissima which, while a bit harder than our first climb, was a nice change of pace. The hill has an easy but quick descent which, if timed right, will carry you most of the way through the next incline — which is pretty much what we were supposed to work on.

And then, just when we thought the night was over, the trainers gathered us in the parking lot of Foothill College for our first cycling drill: one-legged pedaling laps. Oh yeah. You read that right. We had to unclip one foot and circle the parking lot three times, powered only by the outside leg. The idea was to focus balancing most of your weight on the outside leg and a little inside hand. Apparently helps in cornering later. The drill was actually pretty entertaining… once I managed to clip out on my non-dominant foot. (For the record, since my fall I’ve only ever clipped out on the left, so that was harder than it sounds!)

All I can say is I’ve never appreciated having two legs more than on the laps that I was allowed to use both! Between that drill and torture-class the day before, my glutes and hip flexors were screaming. Did I even know the *word* hip flexor before I started this cycling season?! I think not! We had a quick and mercifully flat ride back to our start spot, and were then released for our hard-won Chipotle reward. Oh… and up next week? One leg, one hand drills. So much to look forward to!

Real new hill repeats

Old idea, new location. A good portion of the summer team met up with Al and Jamii (IPF instructors) last Tuesday night for our first “Hills and Skills Clinic” – also known as the new and improved (or so I’ve been told) hill repeats. Instead of meeting at Mount Eden, our repeats haunt of my last two seasons, our group converged on the quiet (until we got there) little park at University and Edith in Los Altos. After a brief introduction to the rest of IPF’s staff, everyone headed over to the base of our hill climb for the evening: Concepcion.

In quick, elementary school count-off style, we were divided into 6 groups – each of which had its own coach. My coach, Jamii (yes, we were the dynamic, multiple spelling’d Jamie-duo for the evening), gave us a pretty simple run down of the gameplan for the night. Ride up the hill, get feedback. Ride back down, get feedback. The only real specifics to start were 1) anyone riding a triple had to climb in the middle ring (build that super leg strength!) and 2) everyone needed to be in the drops coming downhill. Simple instructions set, we were off!

The team was fortunate to have a very high coach to participant ratio, which meant every person got a good amount of individualized attention. Within the first out and back round, I’d learned that:

• I need to bend my elbows more. A lot more. Stupid stiff-armed positioning is definitely not helping my ever-grumpy shoulders and neck.
• My hand grip for steeper climbs is… less than ideal. I should move to the top bar (to get more push-pull action), or stand up to power through the tough parts.
• You really don’t need the baby ring for all hills. Even though we did start with a pretty tame climb, I easily crushed seven repeats in the middle ring.
• My cadence for climbing needs to speed up. Much like my cadence in general. I’m pushing too hard and unnecessarily beating up my body.
• I should sit back further on the saddle while descending, and lift the hiney up slightly when going over the bumps. It lowers your center of gravity even more than just getting in the drops, and getting your tail up makes it less likely that you’ll have some crazy bump and flip action.

After the first round, we pretty much climbed the hill (six more times!!!) at our own pace. The coaches floated throughout the riders and gave pointers where necessary. Surprisingly, I got a few “attagirls” on my descending position. Apparently being somewhat terrified of going downhill and doing so in the correct form are not mutually exclusive. Who knew?!

I’m pretty sure the Concepcion climb is a bit more… tame than Mount Eden, despite being similar in length. I breezed through my seven sets without many issues, whereas I typically felt like death by trip five at our old spot. I did nearly burst my heart open the one time I decided to climb standing for a bit – but that’s more a factor of nerves and poor technique than anything to do with the hill itself. That’s not to say this new route wasn’t a good workout though! I got some great pointers each trip up the hill and putting them into practice definitely left me feeling the tired legs as we made our way back to the park (especially as those poor guys were still recovering from Monday’s IPF torture-session!!).

I’ve been told that this week was the “easy intro session” — get ’em hooked and keep ’em coming back style — but I guess only actually doing it again will tell! Next week we’re in for baseline tests (so we have comparison points later in the season) and possibly a new location. Fun times!

Oh… and I’ve got Garmin data, with cadence and laps. Go me!

What Degree do you Get…

for hill repeats graduation? And is it something that’s worth putting on my resume?

Jamie Coleman, MBA, HRG (Hill Repeats Graduate).

I kinda like it. Back on 12/23, just two days before Christmas, I joined Coach Don and maybe 5 other people for the hill repeats graduation ride. (I was surprised we had that many, given how close it was to Christmas!) Rather than take the trips up and down Mt. Eden, our Graduation Ride headed the other direction down Foothill, back through some very nice neighborhoods. The ride was short, sweet, and a lot of fun. I got to chat with people that I don’t normally see (about half of the riders weren’t on this season’s team), and it was another beautifully sunny day.

The one long-ish climb on the route wasn’t too bad, although I was vaguely nauseous from not eating anything all morning (yay me!). The view from the top was great though; a hill that I hadn’t been up before. Everything was pretty much downhill from there on. A few riders took an alternate route back to add in one more hill, but I stuck to my psuedo-accurate route sheet and headed back up Foothill with two other gals from the group. We had a bit of a scare on the way home. A driver merging onto the road completely ignored signals and right-of-way and nearly plowed into one of the riders in our group. We know the driver saw us…its like she looked right at her and then decided to keep going anyway, despite much screaming and waving. Thankfully no one was hurt, but that’s two rides this year where I’ve had/seen close calls with cars (not counting the accident of course). People really need to get out of their tunnel vision!

Everyone arrived back at the parking lot safe (if not slightly shaken), and headed out for our last formal Chipotle run of the season. I can hardly believe we are far enough along in training to be officially done with repeats…let’s just hope we still get some Mexican food regularly!

Motion Based ride data

No One Here but Me and the Deer

I missed hill repeats last Sunday. There are a lot of things I could blame my absence on…arm, cold, general dislike of descents…but in reality, Charles knocked the plug for the alarm clock out of the wall. I have no natural affinity for waking up early, so it was full on 10am before I discovered the issue; much too late to get ready and show up for repeats. Even knowing that the possibility of me waking up sans-alarm did not exist, I was pretty bummed to have missed the event. As penance (and because I seriously need the extra training), I decided to take my bike out at lunchtime on Monday and do repeats solo.

Monday morning in San Jose was bright and sunny. Apparently the sun has limits on how far it can shine though, as the sky was completely overcast and dreary by the time I reached the park at the base of Mt. Eden. This, of course, meant that I managed to under-layer once again…but not so much as to prevent me from riding, just enough to make me moderately uncomfortable. As far as clothes go, I just can’t seem to win.

In addition to being cloudy, the area was damp (bordering on wet) from rain that had rolled through the night before. I thought to turn back – shaky descents on dry ground are bad enough – but decided to make at least one trip up the hill before heading home. Heck, I was already wearing the gear…might as well make use of it. And so I set out to climb. The road was basically empty. I saw one other cyclist (or what I assume that blur of blue and green spandex on wheels was) as he blew by me on the hill, never to appear again (I’m guessing he went down the backside as opposed to turning around for repeats). And then I saw the deer.

At first, there was just one. It jumped into the road on my first climb and bounded across before I could really react to what I saw. Coming back down extremely cautiously due to the water, I caught sight of a white tail flicker headed into the bushes. Fortuitously, I had brought my camera thinking that I might take a few shots from the summit on a nice “sunny” day. Those didn’t really work out, but I did manage to catch this guy on my first descent.

Temporarily distracted, I ended up doing two more laps up Mount Eden looking for more deer. Hey, there were no cars, no cyclists and fuzzy animals. I’m pretty sure that’s just about as good as hill repeats get! On the second trip down, I skid to a stop just in time to watch a whole family of deer walk through the woods. I had a hard time getting a decent photo of all six, but the one below has four and is reasonably clear. Can you spot ’em all?

The third descent yielded no deer, nor any reasonably cute substitute (No the guy driving the Hummer in the middle of the road didn’t do it for me. Bastage.). Pair that with some really tired legs and an increasingly clouding sky and I decided to head for home. I figure that three repeats all the way to the top is fairly close in effort to the 4-5 partials I would have gotten out with Coach Don. I threw the bike in the truck and drove straight to Chipotle. Yeah, I took it to go (not so fun eating solo), but it was phenomenally tasty knowing that I earned it.

My Muscles are Revolting

Originally drafted 11/25 and magically not posted until now

No, I am not freakishly deformed (although the elbow is not particularly pleasant to view)…I just came back from a week off to do hill repeats with…dundundun…no cold weather gear! I know, some of you are reading this from the North East snowstorms thinking “what do these California people know about cold anyway?” Well, I think it is precisely that prejudice that made me think I could do yet another ride in sub 50 degree weather with nothing more than a pair of bike shorts and a long sleeved jersey…which, in turn, contributed to my leg muscles having a full on revolt after about an hour of riding. California isn’t supposed to be cold dangit! I am not a “winter jacket at 60 degrees” wimp yet!

Overall, hill repeats went well. Rather than doing our typical trips up and down Mt. Eden, Coach Don had us venture out the other direction and do a longer, rolling climb instead. I think it was intended to be a reward for showing up on a holiday weekend! The ride was nice; rolling hills, a stream, wildlife. Scenic. The kind of route that makes me wish I rode with a camera (but heck, if I can’t buy leg warmers…what are the chances I’ll bring a camera?). We did have to brave 5 wooden bridges, which were especially torturous on the elbow (10 really, since the route was an out-and-back), but other than that it was an enjoyable – albeit cold – trip.

I did have a bit of a scare on the return. Keep in mind that I am still pretty shaky on descents. My accident was on a downgrade, and this ride was the first real trip downhill I’ve had to do since then. Things started well. I got into the drops OK, and was pretty comfortable supporting my body weight on the crappy shoulder. I think I topped out somewhere around 25 mph (I know…I used to be such the speed demon…give it time), when I hit a giant seed pod from one of the trees in the middle of the road. Now, these pods are pretty large – probably 6 inches around – and are bright orange to boot…but my reaction time was slow and my front tire plowed into the thing. The bike shimmied and fishtailed, and I had a vision of flying over the guardrail (I was right next to a silver traffic railing over the stream), but ultimately I was able to stay in control. Woohoo!

And that was what put my muscles into full-on revolt mode. The cold weather plus that little shot of adrenaline, and I just couldn’t stop shaking. My legs started vibrating and no amount of long, deep breaths, counting, or logically explaining to myself that these things happen would make them stop. I managed to pull into the parking lot at the park and unclipped without issue. After a quick chat with Ron, I decided that I am probably not genetically deficient at biking and the cycling gods probably don’t really hate me. And the best way to prove that would definitely be to take the optional trip up Mt. Eden. Avoiding things doesn’t make them less scary, and there aren’t many bike trails that don’t have some kind of hills.

Only half the team set out to do the last (only) repeat (hey – Coach Don did make it optional), and I’m proud to say I was able to do the entire trip up without stopping. We recouped at the top and were chatting about spin class when we spotted the rest of the team rounding the last bend. It was definitely cool to see everyone voluntarily challenge themselves – even after initially planning to opt-out. One of those “Go team!” moments, for sure.

An uneventful descent, one dropped chain, and 4 miles later I was back at the truck and en route to Chipotle. Mmmmm Mexican food that I can honestly say I earned. Guess the season really has started! Gear clinic on Thursday, I promise to have all the winter pieces for the next ride.

FYI – The Garmin did make the trip. Distances and times to be updated once I get the darn thing outta the truck!

Update 12/11 – Woot for Data!
MotionBased Data: Hill Repeats 11/25

Total Time (h:m:s)	2:06:45	8:11 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)	1:33:48	6:04 pace
Distance (mi )	15.45
Moving Speed (mph)	9.9 avg.	34.9 max.
Elevation Gain (ft)	+1,517/ -1,519

Slowly but Surely, She Makes Progress

Alternate Title: Coach Don or Pod Person?

I was super excited for hill repeats last night, if only for a chance to actually test out the Garmin. I’m kind of a gadget freak, and the thought of having all that data about my rides is rather intoxicating. Since it took me a full two days to find time to install the beast and actually get it working, I was really looking forward to playing with the new toy.

The ride out to our starting spot was much the same as ever. I actually got there fast enough that there was still lean-space on the wooden fence, so I got to do some stretching without bike in hand (always a good thing). I remembered to hit the “LAP” button on the toy before rolling out for each repeat, and can theoretically compare my performance for each trip up and back.

And now…the rundown…

1. Normal-style: Pretty much the same as last week. I started in one gear up from the bottom, and ended up dropping to granny-mode just past “that spot”. Made it all the way to the last curve in the road (wooden fence in sight!) before turning back. Topped out around 32 on the descent…that one sharpish curve really kills my speed!
2. Spiiining up the hiiiill: Patty actually wasn’t there to sing to us on the climb last night, so I mentally went for a twist on “Singing in the Rain” for this repeat. Ended up at almost the exact same spot on the ascent, and the same speed on the descent. Really the only difference on this trip up was that I made an effort to keep my cadence a bit higher; should look through my nifty new graphs to see if it worked!
3. Circle Pedal: Coach Don was apparently swapped with his pod person double before tonight. Not only did he tell us exactly how many repeats we were doing (this count is usually more tightly guarded than most government secrets), he didn’t torture us with a full 2-3 cycles all the way to the summit. Bizarre!

   This was a push-pull round, on which I did surprisingly well. I climbed ever so slightly farther than last time, a full TWO gears up from the lowest. When I hit the turn around and realized I hadn’t downshifted, I knew that repeats must be paying off. Woohoo!

4. Get on up…out of the saddle: (Yes, I’m mentally channeling – and destroying – James Brown there if you missed the reference) Stand, to the top. If you take the time to look over the Garmin data for this round, you’ll notice my heart rate spike. Quickly. Standing is still a challenge for me. Not that I can’t do it…I just burn way more energy and can’t sustain it the whole way. I got to the first big right hand turn before I had to sit and gear down before my little heart exploded. At least I made it the whole way (and did manage to get that HR under control!). In better news…36mph on the descent baby!

The ride back was quick, especially with Scott pulling a good part of the way. Endorphins were kickin’ in full force by the time I hit Chipotle. Not only did I torture Colin with my own personal rendition of “Black Water” while in line for food, I veritably skipped back out to my car after eating. Possibly annoying, but if that’s not a show of improvement over my first week of full-on limping home, I don’t know what is!

And now…what you’ve all been waiting for…

MotionBased Data – Hill Repeats 8/1/07
Distance: 12.84 mi

Time: 1:01:50

Avg MPH: 12.5

Max MPH: 36.0

Waaaait…this is the Frikkin’ Top!

All in all, hill repeats last night went well. I say all in all because, depending on when you talked to me at repeats, my answer would have ranged anywhere from really well to “@!#!” (that being the indescribable grunt I make when I can’t breathe, not some four-letter word that I’m afraid to type…not that I can think of any words I wouldn’t type if they were appropriate anyway).

And now for a medium to extremely lengthy, occasionally over detailed break down of each repeat that I always claim is “short”.

1. Normal-mode: I actually started this round one gear above the lowest. Yeah, it’s not much in the grand scheme of things, but I could tell the difference! I ended up downshifting about 60% of the way up; hey – it’s a start, right? Struggled a bit (mentally more than anything) on this round, but made it all the way to the last bend in the road.
2. Spinnin’: It seems like I should be able to claim that I actually dropped a gear this week, but that may be exaggerating slightly. I did, whenever I wasn’t thinking about breathing, manage to keep the cadence up a little higher. Easier than round one, even though I had to keep up some pretty set breathing patterns to do it.
3. On Your Feet: I get better at this every week, but I still can’t go the whole way out of the saddle. Word to the wise: Sweaty palms (even with gloves on!) really puts a damper in the sway motion you get while standing. I had to sit down the first time after nearly losing grip on the hoods, but…for the first time ever…I got back out of the saddle twice more up the hill. Woohoo! This was the round where I yelped out loud “What the hell? This is the freakin top!” upon hitting that very last bend a third time in a row. I apparently haven’t been paying my “fast people please climb quickly” dues!
4. Pushme-Pullyou to the top: Circle pedaling is a nifty animal, as you definitely can feel a change in performance to energy output when you do it. I actually try and do this pretty much anytime I’m capable of rational thought, which apparently could stand to be a bit more often. This was my best round overall. I hit the top without much of a struggle, and wasn’t even doing my fish-out-of-water impression for too long at the top. Yay me!
5. Down and Back to the Summit: For every good round, there must be a corresponding not-so-good one. My legs were basically rubber at this point, and I had at least two moments of “there is NO way” thoughts that I had to work hard to push through to stay in the saddle. I did make it, and I was panting. Sometimes, I guess, just getting there is enough.

The descents were good, although I couldn’t quite reach my top speed from last week – and not for lack of trying. I got a second wind out of nowhere on the ride home and decided to chase pretty much anyone that flew by my as best I could. Granted, the very fastest smoked me all but instantaneously, but I hung with the middle-front pack pretty well. Interestingly enough, my top speed for the night came on the very last downhill stretch right before the park, not from Mt. Eden. I topped out at 34.9 (damn you elusive 35!), and was feeling pretty darn proud until Ruth blew by me like I was standing still. Oh well – I still get my small victories, right?

Just to show that I’m always learning at the repeats, I thought I’d give you a taste of this week’s lessons:

• You aren’t really in shape until you can do hill repeats while singing. Apparently it’s thought to be more socially acceptable than cursing, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to get the tune to fit in between gasping for air. #@!@ and !#@# fit nicely.
• it is considered a faux pas to kick teammates down the hill in a fit of jealous rage just because they can sing and you can’t. Actually, kicking anyone down anything is rather frowned upon. Shockingly. How did I end up on this team again?
• “Rolling up Mount Eden” to the tune of Proud Mary is really catchy and you can (and will) sing it for days, even when there are no hills in sight. Try it now if you want to see…go on, do it!
• People with shaved legs are more aerodynamic and therefore ride faster. I am the obvious, freakish exception to this rule. I personally blame the fluffy red ponytail, but as of yet have been unwilling to sacrifice my head of hair to test the theory.
• “That’s my spot” during hill repeats refers to that steep-ish banked part of the road that I find mentally challenging, and nothing more than that. Pointing this out to Patrick as he rides by is funnier than hearing him talk about men who shave their legs (at least to me).
• Don’t fly by someone on the left with very little warning, unless you want to be on the receiving end of a spit out bug. Lucky for me I was the spitter this time. Well, not so lucky for the recipient or the bug, but I’m due at least a little selfishness after 5 repeats…no?
• Hill repeats are fun enough that people who can’t ride them still come to the dinner afterwards. Often! Well, maybe said people just really like Chipotle (or theoretically the company) but …whatever. If you haven’t come to repeats yet, the post-ride food/people alone make it worthwhile.

I’m sure there are more, but it’s late and I’m sleepy. See you all for the “Not your Buddy” Buddy Ride on Saturday! And yes, that makes three posts in one day, as it’s still before midnight. At least I’m caught up now and can no longer be harassed for slacking…about blogging.

Distance: 14.75mi

Time: 1:12:00ish

Avg MPH: 12.6

Max MPH: 34.9 (grrrrrrrrr!)