Most of you know I finally bought a new bike at the end of last summer. It turns out it's the same kind of bike as Polly has. I'm super excited to ride it in the Memory Ride this year and hope I'll have a much better ride with it. At the same time, I realized that last year I just simply hadn't trained enough. Having over-trained the first year, clearly I under trained in the second. Maybe that's typical - I don't know. But anyway, I'm determined to do a better job of training this year, particularly on hills which was my biggest struggle last summer.
So, I officially started my training a few weeks ago. I really wanted to get a ride in by March 15th but it didn't happen until the 17th. It wasn't much - just 4.73 mi., but the point was just to get it started. Since then I did a few other short rides just to get back into the feel of riding.
Last Friday, the weather here was just beautiful and I got out and did my longest ride so far - 17.75 mi. Most of that ride was fairly flat except for a few pretty big hills (at least for me at this point in the season). But I was pleased I made it up all the hills except for the really steep one on the way home from pretty much all our rides. Before the steep hill, which I walked up, I stopped to take some pictures of the cherry trees in the park with my new Android phone.Feeling pretty proud of myself, I did another ride Saturday along the river drive. This was a flat ride and I told myself I would just take it easy and "recover" from the ride the day before. But when I came to my nemesis hill on the way home, I thought, what the heck and gave it a try. I was definitely huffing and puffing but I made it! So, now I told myself that I have to take the hill every time and not be a wuss! :)
Happy spring and happy riding to all!
