Bike Week

In less than 24 hours, The Laundry Fairy arrives on the island! So excited to see my mom... but even more excited for her to see Moana. And as excited as I am... well, I'm sure that's *nothing* compared to how excited she is to get here and see us. I've said it before- the biggest negative about living on an island in the middle of the Pacific is being so far away from family. And it's x100 now that we have Moana.

So all week Grammy will be here and she'll think she's in heaven playing with Moana in all her cuteness. And guess what that means for me? Yep! Bike Week!

A live-in babysitter like my mom means that I'm going to have more free time than ever all week long. And I plan on spending lots of that free time pedaling on two wheels.

Bike Week actually started yesterday... I rode with a couple of my athletes and some other friends... a departure from my usual group because I was feeling the need to scale back the intensity a bit. Last week after the usual Saturday ride I analyzed my HR data and saw that I spent 44 minutes in zone 4. And that was just to hang on to a wheel. Um, maybe a bit too much for January. Ya think? So this week I arranged a ride with some folks who I figured would be happy to ride at about the effort level that I wanted to ride at, and it was perfect. I pretty much set the pace and really enjoyed it- if nothing other than for the fact that I wasn't arguing with myself the whole time about working too hard. Nice too, to get an email from Roz afterward telling me that the pace was perfect yesterday and thanking me for keeping it steady (like I told her I would).

Then today, since I don't trust my calf to hold up to a long run just yet, I did a short run this morning and then got back on my bike in the afternoon. I wanted to go check out a climb that I've heard about... and yep, it's wicked steep. I didn't have time to do the whole thing today though. It takes me about 90 minutes just to ride to the base of the climb from home so I just went part way up to get a feel for it and then rode home. Next time I'll plan 4 hours for the ride so I can do more of the climb. Today it was just 10 minutes in my 39x25* standing up panting with sweat flowing off me like a faucet while going maybe 5 mph before turning around and zooming down in 30 seconds. Ok, I'm totally exaggerating about going down that fast. The truth is, I thought maybe my brakes would burst into flames at any moment because I was squeezing them so hard as my bike was trying to fly down that mountain. The problem was that the road didn't have any switchbacks so it was just straight up and then straight down and I had visions of my bike wheeling itself out of control right into the ocean (with me still on it) so I was doing what I could to avoid that.

Anyway, so I've got a good start to Bike Week. If I'm MIA all next week, you can be pretty sure it's because I'm out on two wheels. :)

*Prior to moving to Hawaii I lived in AZ and was a total snob about bike gearing. I really thought that 25 tooth cogs were for complete wimps or newbies who didn't have strong legs. HA! So when I moved here and people told me to get a 25 I laughed and thought, "No need." HA! Well, let me tell you, I finally gave in and bought the 25 and now use it *every time* I ride my road bike. Today I could have used a 27, or compact cranks, or something, because that ridge is wicked.