Still here, still riding.  Just to quick recap since my last real (as opposed to random thoughts as I walk past the computer, like the last post) post:

 Friday, 1/19:  Headed out to ride 70 miles.  Cold, windy day, but the sun was shining.  Didn’t get out the door till 9:17 am, 17 minutes later than planned.  Then I stopped at 30 miles to return a phone call, which took about 15 minutes.  Plus I was just slow.  Upshot:  I had to cut the ride short at 66 miles, so that I could get to school by 3 for carpool.  Lesson learned:  No more long rides on carpool days.

(Aside:  that night, our 13 year-old had a party.  We had 28 middle-schoolers in our house for three hours.  My anxiety about it was through the roof all week, but it actually wound up being fine.  The music was a bit loud for this old fogey, but other than that, I had no complaints.  Not that I’m volunteering to do it again anytime soon . . .)

 Saturday and Sunday, I was lazy.  Not lazy, really, since I was painting like a madwoman, but I didn’t ride at all.  Monday I rode the trainer and did core work; Tuesday I went for a 30 minute run.  Wednesday I took the day off in anticipation of my long ride. 

Which was Thursday.  I rode 80 miles, and you don’t want to know how long it took.  It was quite chilly, but calm and sunny.  Then it got cloudy.  Then the sun came back out, the wind picked up horribly, and the temperature started to drop.  Luckily I finished before, oh, nightfall.  All in all, a tough ride–this was the first ride in which the mileage bumped up against my current limits.  That’s a good thing–it builds fitness–but it’s hard work.

I was pleased with my brilliant route, though.  I mapped out a loop of exactly 30 miles, which is how far I can generally go before I really need a pit stop.  So instead of stopping at a gas station, I stopped at home, where I had left dry clothes, a sandwich, fresh bottles of sports drink, etc.  Then I rode the same loop again (managing to time the whole thing so that I passed Green Hope High School both before and after lunch, but not while the students were flying down the road talking on their cell phones and harassing unsuspecting cyclists), stopped at home one more time, then did a 20 mile loop in a completely different direction.  I was incredibly pleased with the whole thing, and the routes are simple, familiar, comfortable, and (mostly) dog-free.  When I told Lee about it, he said, “Well, I guess we know what you’ll be doing for 90 miles.”  Yep.

Took Friday off (I felt fine; just a bit sore on the tops of my shoulders–trapezius muscles, I think?  Not sure why they were sore, but perhaps I should work on that), then just a short recovery spin yesterday of about 10 miles.  I’m trying to remind myself to do quick little rides like that that make me happy, because if every time I get on my bike I’m just working hard and pushing myself, I’ll burn out in a hurry.

Today I was just lazy.  I can’t really think of a good way to justify it.

Here is my brilliant observation of the day:

It is really, really important, when one is in the middle of a difficult ride, never to think about the next ride. Or the even longer ride that is the ultimate goal.

Thoughts like this are bad for overall morale.

So. Now that it’s mid-January, Brevet week is suddenly in 4 months. Yikes. I’m planning to ride roughly 900 miles that week, so I’m feeling like now is the time to really build some volume.

Problem is, I’m not entirely sure how to do it. I’ve read everything I can find about training for long rides—that usually means a cross-state tour, a double century, or at most a 600k brevet. Brevet week consists of 4 of these monster rides, back-to-back.

I’ve spent a lot of time sitting on my bed with a calendar and a pencil, scheduling long rides of peculiar distances like 167 miles, based on various peculiar theories of percentages or ratios. I’ve agonized over my palm pilot, trying to figure out how to ride 12 hours on a day when I have to do carpool at 2:45, Tae Kwon Do at 4:15, and tap at 6.

In marathon training, you run several days a week, including some intervals, a tempo run, and at least one long run. Debate rages over the optimal distance for the longest long run, and as far as I can tell, the distance that works best for a given person is a function of that person’s goal for the race—if you’re trying to win, you probably ought to go over-distance, maybe up to 28 or 30 miles. But if you’re just trying to finish before they tear down the finish line, you don’t need to go more than 22 in training, and as little as 20 might be fine.

But I’m not sure how to translate that formula to an event of this magnitude. Obviously, overdistance isn’t an option. So what do I do? In 2003, I trained up to nearly the distance of the first brevet (I did my first century ride a few weeks before the 200k), and then considered each brevet to be a build-up to the next distance. That worked reasonably well until I tried to make the jump from 600k to 1200k (although that was more than just a failure of training—it was a complete systems melt-down). Plus, I had two or three weeks to recover between each brevet; this year I’ll have, at most, 36 hours between rides.

I tend to think in absolutes, so what I want to know is how long my longest training ride needs to be, and then I’ll work backwards from there. A century doesn’t seem like enough, but distances much greater than that seem, in my head, insurmountable as solo training rides. I could ride some early season brevets in other states (including some of our local ones), but that bothers me—won’t I feel less committed to the Wisconsin rides if I’ve already done, say, a 200k and a 300k?

I’m leaning toward maxxing out at about 200k, but perhaps trying to do some serious back-to-back distance—maybe 5 centuries in a row? Ugh. I get tired just thinking about that, and the scheduling will be a nightmare. Then there’s the question of how many long days per week? How many intervals are enough? What exactly IS tempo for something like this, anyway? And how many days off are too many??!

Anyway, I know in my heart that what I really need to do is ride the bike. Sitting on the bed with pencil and paper is not making my butt any tougher!

Literally.  Well, I wasn’t literally making hay, but the sun was definitely shining.  I went for a particularly fantastic ride today.

 Here was the strategy (and I highly recommend it!)–

Our favorite local place for dim sum opens at 11 on Sundays, so I slept late, had a glass of orange juice and a cup of my favorite tea (it’s an unnamed loose-leaf that my dad brought back from India, and I absolutely love it.  It’s smooth, deep-flavored, and it is the most caffeinated thing I’ve ever consumed.  The first time I tried it, I had two cups on an empty stomach, and thought I was going to pass out.  I turned so pale my son noticed–he never notices anything).  Anyway–I put my bike and my clothes in the car, and we went for dim sum.  I ate with impunity, clearing all the plates and finishing everyone else’s little bits and bobs.  Great way to start the day!

 I changed clothes in the bathroom, and headed out from there.  I went out Davis Dr., which is nice and quiet on a Sunday, then turned around and came back.  At the 22 mile mark, I stopped off at Inside Out Sports in Cary, where I was meeting my friend Amelia.  She wanted to test-ride a triathlon bike, so we headed out from there and rode 20 miles together (the Triangle Triathlon course, for hills, and then Aviation Pkway through Morrisville to Davis Dr. for some flatter bits), chatting and analyzing the cool bike.  Having a bit of company in the middle of what would otherwise been a solo ride is great, and I don’t see this particular friend all that often, and we almost never get to ride together, so that really added to my day.  Thanks Amelia!

 Anyway, I dropped her back off at the shop, and turned toward home for the last 18 miles.  And once you get down below 20, it seems like you’re almost done, so I just relaxed and enjoyed the weather.  The temperature dropped all the way down to 68 by the time I got home.  Can’t beat that in January!

Tomorrow’s supposed to be another fabulous day, but the offspring will be home and the honey won’t, so I think I’ll be Meanie-Head Mommy and make the children help me do yard work.  Luckily for me, I love that almost as much as cycling.  Too bad the children don’t love it. 

So Saturday I went for a fabulous ride.  It was the 6th of January, and I wore shorts and a short-sleeved jersey.  It was 70 degrees, sunny, and an all-around gorgeous day.  I rode 50 miles–Holly Springs, Apex, Morrisville, then home–during the course of which I saw no fewer than 20 cyclists on the road (and several questionable folks riding road bikes on the sidewalk!).  This, I thought over and over again, is why I live in the South.  Welcome to winter!

 I’m hoping I didn’t gloat too soon.  Night before last, Greg Fishel said that NOAA’s long-range forecast calls for one more warm weekend, and then a complete flip-flop–the second half of the winter may be as cold as the first half was mild.  Hmm.  Given that I spent most of Sunday poring over a calendar, filling up the next few months with long bike rides, this weather prediction gives me pause.

 I try hard not to be a wimp, but sometimes it’s hard.  Cold-weather riding just sucks.  There–I’ve said it.  No more whingeing.

 In the meantime, I’m painting our exercise room pink.  Why?  Because I can.

It’s New Year’s Day, today.  Time for resolutions and all that.  I actually make resolutions every year, but I’m usually very private about it.  I’m very superstitious (I know, intellectually, that superstitions are silly, but I often choose to ignore my intellect anyway . . .), and somehow it just seems to me that starting the New Year with a certain mindset or frame of mind is important.  So I always ride my bike on January 1st.  Since I’ve been riding, anyway.

In past years I’ve done the annual ride put on by my LBS, The Spin Cycle.  But there’s a little note on their website that says they won’t go if the weather is “inclement.”  Hmmm.  Today this was a dilemma.

 My friend Lisa Angel and I were planning to do the ride together–neither of us has ridden outside since Christmas, and she had even reined in her New Year’s plans so that she’d be up and at ‘em in time this morning.  The only possible kink in the plan was a cold front that started pushing through last night.  It was supposed to rain off and on this morning, clearing up in the afternoon, and bringing colder temps.  So when I got up this morning, it was nearly 70 and very cloudy, and the roads were wet, but it wasn’t actually raining.  We talked on the phone, and hemmed and hawed about it, and finally decided to bag the organized, 10 AM ride.  Surely, we reasoned, it made sense to wait until the afternoon, when the skies would be clear, rather than risk getting caught in the downpour that was bound to happen late in the morning.

So we waited.  I made soup.  I did dishes.  I sliced oranges to make some marmalade.  I looked at the Doppler.  Delaney had a friend over.  Toby watched football.  It was warm and cozy and puttery in my house.  I had very little desire to leave.

But we decided that 2 o’clock was our drop-dead time–we had to get on the road by then, or we’d be pushing too close to dark getting back home.  So when we talked at 1:45, it wasn’t raining, so we decided to go forward.  By the time Lisa got to my house, it was drizzling.  Hmmm.

Ever the intrepid adventurers, we got on the bikes and headed out.  Lisa’s first comment was that the last time she had started a ride in the rain was in Vietnam.  That got my attention–you don’t really expect someone to say that, even if you know full well she did a bike tour in Vietnam several years ago.  So of course, I couldn’t be a wuss.  At least it’s not cold today, right?

Mm-hmm.  Not cold at all–indoors.  That whole cold front thing?  It’s called that for a reason.  While it was pouring on us (the really wet kind of pouring; sloshing-in-my-shoes kind of wet), the temperature was going down.  It dropped 10 degrees during the course of our 30 mile ride.  It did, mercifully, stop raining in the last half hour, but by then we were so wet it didn’t matter a whole lot.

The whole time we were riding in the rain (some of which was a stinging, wind-driven downpour), we were uncomfortably conscious of the fact that we had waited through the whole dry morning before we headed out in the rain.  I was convinced that every driver who splashed by us in a warm, dry car–and there were an amazing number, given that it was a holiday–was laughing at us, knowing that we had skipped a perfectly good, dry ride in favor of insanity. 

Interesting observation:  hard-core chatting can distract one from all manner of miseries.  We have ridden together a fair amount over the years, and it’s always good catching-up time, but we were both working today to keep the talk flowing.  It was kind of amazing to me how well it worked–as long as we were talking, I wasn’t thinking about my cold, numb feet (too much).  And at one point I realized just how miserable I’d be if I was alone, and I was very grateful not to be!

So now it’s a new year.  Lisa had wise words about today’s ride–she said that if this was the first ride of the year, then things could only get better.  Later, after my feet thawed out, I was pretty pleased to have ridden in nasty weather.  I know it’s what I have to do to build mental toughness, and to be ready for whatever PBP throws at me, and the only way to prepare for misery is to practice.  At least today I got to be miserable with company!

 Aside:  I did actually have one New Year’s resolution, and it has nothing to do with cycling.  I thought about the concept of resolutions a lot on the ship, and decided that my best chance of following through on one would be to think of something very specific.  So here it is–I’m going to leave the house 5 minutes early for appointments and school pick-ups.  There.  Now it’s public.  If you see me at the grocery store at 2:30 in the afternoon, feel free to remind me.