I Like Being In Charge

We have had the most stunningly beautiful weather here lately. Just sunshine and blue skies and fairly light (for us) winds... 75-80 degrees... If it makes you feel any better, I'm not taking it for granted and I'm outside a lot lately soaking it all up!

Yesterday I went riding with one of my athletes... I always thought that I liked riding alone but what I really like is being in charge (Ha! We can laugh at this but if I'm honest this is true! And I currently have my DREAM job telling other people what to do every day! Lol)... and I'm not typically in charge of group rides which means I'm at the mercy of the pace that everyone else wants too ride... which I swear is nearly always either too fast or too slow... BUT I have three local guys that I coach who are all just a bit faster than me (ie I can hang on their wheels as long as we're not on a long climb) so the ideal scenario is that I rotate through them and we do their workouts together! Good for me because I get to spend time with, get to know better, watch, and advise (Get in your aero bars! Eat now! Pick it up! Back off! What's your HR? Etc.) while also getting great training in and they get to have a super solid workout that gets done exactly as it was intended. Win-win! Yesterday Armando was my project and given that it was his first day riding with his new power meter it was a super opportunity for us both... because not only now do I have a graph to look at of his data from the ride, but I also had his face to look at after 4+ hours to see what kind of toll the prescribed effort was taking. He did great too... Though at one point coming home I told him to pick it up for a bit at 240-250W... he weighs more than me so of course when I had to start swearing out loud gritting my teeth to hang on and saw that I was at 250+W on his wheel I totally started barking at him to back off (something along the lines of I'm at 250W so I KNOW you are at 300!) There is no fooling me when I am also looking at my power numbers. Lol.

Anyway, in good news we got through the ride and he did not fire me* so it's all good. :)

Patrick, you're up next weekend! :)

Speaking of being in charge, last night we had an episode of Super Nanny here at home. At 3 years old, Moana is testing the boundaries of how far she can go with us... maybe she's picked up some bad habits at school (ie whine and end up getting what she wants?) but here at home she does not ever get what she wants when she screams/whines. I've told her that since before she even understood sentences so this is nothing new (and consequently I think she screams/whines less than many 3 year olds) but last night she was fiercely protesting bedtime (which she pretty much never does?) She just kept saying NO I DON'T WANT TO GO TO BED and she just wasn't listening... So I followed Super nanny's instructions and got down at her level and explained to her that she was not to talk to me like that and that it was bedtime, etc and put her in bed... then for 45' we went through he just WAILING SCREAMING IN PROTEST... And then she would get out of bed and I would go put her back in bed without saying a word... more WAILING AND SCREAMING... I can't believe our neighbors didn't call CPS. It was definitely hard to listen to all that but I heard somewhere a quote about parenting that went something like "Choose your battles wisely, but when you engage, win at all costs." So we held our own and won that one last night. And wouldn't you know it... nap time came today and she just happily grabbed her blanket and went to bed. Phew.


*He later told me he survived the ride (and didn't fire me) because he has suffered a particular type of hearing loss that involves voices. Ha! That totally made me laugh!