Mental Training

I got home from riding this morning and my husband asked, "Did you cut it short?"

He asked this because I was home earlier than usual. My answer? "No. In fact, we rode 6 miles further than usual."

62 miles. Ride time 2:55. Holy cow.

The thing is, none of it was really crazy fast. But none of it was easy. None. It was big chain ring, aero bars, steady state pace the whole time. It felt like a half ironman race, except we were drafting. But the effort was the same.

Spence dragged Sandy and me around the east side of Oahu this morning. Drafting off him feels like motor pacing. He's like a machine. He never slows down. He never backs off. And apparently nobody has ever told him that you can slow down when faced with a relentless headwind. Or rolling hills. Or a wet bumpy road.

It was good training, really. Nice to know that I can sustain that effort for hours on end, even when I'd just love to back off, for just a minute... to recover, just a little. It was almost more mental training than anything. At one point I realized that I was concentrating so hard that I didn't even have a song in my head. So on the way back, I made a conscious effort to get a song in my head. And you know what popped in? "Sleep, pretty baby, do not cry, and I will sing you a lullaby..." Note to self: STOP playing that CD for Moana when you put her down each night.