Round Top Tuesday

My plan today was to repeat that brick I did last Tuesday on Tantalus. I started climbing though and less than a mile in was told the road was closed and I couldn't ride through. Damn! I asked about the other side (Round Top Dr, where I usually descend) and was told yes could ride there. Apparently I can adapt (when I care enough) so I changed my plan and went and rode there.

In a way it might have been a blessing in disguise that I didn't race myself up Tantalus today. In all my years I'd never climbed up Round Top so I didn't have a frame of reference from which to judge myself. So instead of ripping my legs off to go faster than I did last week, I just did 3x30min mod/strong efforts up the hill and called it good. There's definitely benefit from just doing work and not judging it every time. I'm sure I'll judge it next week!

Interestingly, there were cops everywhere this morning. After my 2nd trip down, I ran into a couple of friends of mine who were also training on the mountain today. I asked if they knew what was up on the Tantalus side and they said ya apparently some guy stole a car and crashed it and they found explosives inside and then someone saw him fleeing with a rifle?? So the police were searching for him. Um... OK maybe today wasn't the best day to be climbing that mountain by myself but (sorry mom) I went up the third trip anyway (and obviously lived to tell about it).

I haven't heard if they found the guy, but by the time I rode back to my car, the Tantalus side was open again so I did the same run as last week (2 miles up; 2 miles down). Got up in 22:39 and down in 14:48, so you can do the math on that. It felt hard!! But my hip felt perfect (yes!!) Was satisfying to be faster than last week but I'll admit I was pushing to get that, maybe a little too much? But within a few minutes of finishing I felt ok and recovered so I don't think it was really too much. That 37:27 was still ~2min slower than what I was doing in 2012 so have some work to do if I'm trying to match my old self but given that today was 2min faster than last week I'd guess that if I keep plugging away, I'll get there!

My routine after this brick is to 'shower' off by dumping water over myself at a park bathroom (keeping it klassy!)... I dry off and change clothes and eat my lunch in my car- while answering emails- then head off to my chiro appt with Dr Zen. I do find that regular chiro appointments are keeping everything in line and functioning as it should so making those a priority is important for me. All this makes Tuesday a long day away from home... My animals don't appreciate it but I get home in time to pick up Moana from Girl Scouts and walk the dog. Dinner on Tuesdays is crockpot that I prepare before I go which eases up on the evening stuff I have to do.

And in case you're just here for a kitten picture... Is she daring Maia to eat her??