Go Big Or Go Home

2013 arrived in a storm. Literally. This is what I'm looking at this week. Lovely!

In good news I feel fairly immune at this point to weather related issues when I'm riding. Wet, windy, whatever. It's not like it's 40 and raining. That would suck. ;)

Anyway, today was interesting as I was out on my 'easy' day... 'just' a 3 hour bike/30' run... more on my new coach who is clearly more BSC than me in a bit... It was pretty ridiculous conditions out there with the strong north winds and squalls of driving rain... didn't see too many other cyclists this morning (not as many as you'd normally expect on New Years Day anyway) but the few I did see all gave knowing nods... like ya, we're doing this. Toward the end of the ride my power data went blank. I got home and figured out why.

Looks like water got in to my PT hub and the batteries didn't like it. Shocking! I also had my first flat of the year today... probably shouldn't have bragged about only have 2 all last year! Now I am in for it. Or maybe not. I have those Tuffy tire liner things in my tires which is the reason for the huge reduction in flat tires last year- it takes something pretty significant to get through that and it kind of has to come through the sidewall, which is what happened today. Anyway, there I was, riding in sideways rain with a dead powertap and a flat tire and amazingly just felt unaffected by the circumstances. In the past this type of scenario would have left me feeling pissy. But not today! I think that is a good sign for 2013.

There's a mountain behind those clouds somewhere...

The worst part about riding in conditions like these is the time you have to spend on maintenance on your bike afterward. I actually hosed this baby down before even trying to wipe her clean. I didn't even want to touch her! But I did need to address that powertap issue so cleaning was mandatory today.

Anyway, I think the reason I did not feel pissy today was that I can tell, 100%, that this new training program I'm on is working. And when you know you're on the right path, motivation gets higher. You're willing to put up with more crap. More rain. More dirt and grit on your bike. More flat tires. Whatever. Just ride. Because it's working!

So here was my thinking... I had a good year in 2012, but it wasn't my best year. There's more in there, I know there is. And my gut was telling me that I wanted/needed someone more experienced than me to help me pull it out. I am good at making myself do the training. I can put in the volume no problem. I can even write good intense intervals for myself... but interestingly, when I don't have a coach, I tend to modify my planned bike/run workouts on the fly and they become much more an 'as you feel' effort vs actually pushing myself even if I don't feel like it. This was my problem in 2012.

I came up with a short list of coaches I thought might work well with. Honestly, my #1 concern was that a coach would treat me with kid gloves and I did not want to waste my time with that. I don't know how many years left I have here at my prime (I'll be 39 next month!) but only maybe a few and I just figured Go Big Or Go Home, you know? I am at a point in my training/racing where I feel I am ready for that. So I went with my gut and contacted Scott DeFilippis with Team TBB. Team TBB has a reputation for working hard, maybe a bit unconventional (which honestly was probably the #1 draw for me) and they clearly have something figured out b/c their athletes perform. Scott was a collegiate runner, has been coached by Jack Daniels in the past and is now coached by Brett Sutton. He just ran 2:47 at IM Florida for 3rd OA. He told me that if I didn't want kid gloves then he was my person. Perfect. Let's get going.

So I'm in week 3 of the program. I wasn't going to tell anyone... I was just going to quietly do it and show up at Cabo ready to blow it out. But that makes for a boring blog, no? So I'll detail at least a bit of what I'm learning here. I'll say this so far... it's been interesting! My biggest take away so far is the consistency of the work. Pretty much every day I do something that is solid. But so far none of the workouts themselves have been over the top (though I saw the plan for Saturday and I think, by anyone's standards, it is freakin' over.the.top)... but it's more like the way they're stacked together that makes them work. I am learning a ton, I've watched my power jump up to nearly my highest outputs ever in less than 2 weeks, and the run workouts scare me. One thing I thought was cool was that Scott recognized that whatever I'm doing with my swim is working, so he is letting me stay pretty much in charge of the details of that... he'll tell me a theme for the day (ie aerobic only or as was the case yesterday, "flog yourself") and then I get to write the actual workouts, which of course I love. But the bike/run stuff he writes the details and I have been following them to a T. Turns out, I freakin' LOVE following directions when I believe in the plan. I have not modified a single thing in the last few weeks. Novel, right? Lol.

So there you go. In 2013 I'm a "TBB online" gal. Go Big Or Go Home!