38 + 2:25 + .76 + 20% = FUN!

Yesterday's 30 yard ride in the hub sucking mud had me pretty geeked for some REAL saddle time today. Sure it would be on the road (boo!) and not all that long (2:25) but it would be part of a pretty perfect Saturday.

First I have to say that I find it hard to believe that just a few days ago my fingers were frozen solid and I once again ended my ride with frozen bottles. Today I was out in shorts and a jersey at 10:30 a.m.! Weather is so f*cked this time of year, but I'll take what I can get. I would have been nice to have put in a nice 4 hour ride, but jumping right from a 4 or 6 hour "trainer" week to a "REAL" double digit big ass week probably wouldn't be so wise.

I settled (sort of) for 38+ miles and 2:25 in the saddle out on the road today. Not all that long, but I hit plenty of climbing to make the legs hurt, and finished with a BIG ass climb up Turner Valley Road, even though I would ride right past the Xb to do it. It's just that I I wanted to FEEL that climb again, I wanted to feel it in my nuggets. It's a steep one, and since I'll be doing plenty of climbing this season, I figured why not start now?

Here's the final .76 mile of a climb...

Drunk Dutchmen

You know when you see the Tour, Giro. or other races with their big ass mountain stages and you see a racer like Contador "dancing on the pedals" up a 20% grade whilst a drunk Dutch dude runs along side him shouting in his face. That's JUST how I climbed today. Err, well not like Contador, I was actually talking about the Drunk Dutchman. But that was OK with me, since I FELT like I was climbing pretty darn OK today.

The Mantra

That whole Dutchman thing also provided me with a pretty sweet "mantra" for my climbs. Not sure if you ever heard the song "5-4 Vocal" by Pavement. It's an alternate version on the Crooked Rain re-issue. Anyway there's a part were S.M. is screaming about a Dutchman. That lyric was my climbing mantra today. Thanks S.M.!



It drives many a person insane, but since I already reside in that part of sanity, I love it!

Check out the pic below... I thought it was sort of sad. Do you think they might get a better engineer involved in this one?

It took them until last spring to fix it the first time. I guess I should expect some orange barrels real soon. Oh well. So I put in my road time, got in some good climbing and then came home and "cross trained" by working in the yard for almost 2 hours removing all the shit that accumulated over the late fall and winter. I was so freaking spent my the end of my day, that I had to do this blog post in shifts! HA!

Here's a shot of one of my fave climbs.
It's not the hardest, but it IS hard.

I call it Hail Marry Hill since when you FINALLY come around the last switchback of the climb there in a Mother House for some Nuns. I feel required via my instilled Catholic Guilt™ to lay down a Hail Marry when I FINALLY hit the top and get my breath back. Plus I figure that if in the next mile I get smacked down by a semi I'm good to go with the Big Guy. ;) (Yeah right!!)

Lastly there's this pic....

The rest of the evening has been spent with my two fave peeps (Wifey and B-Man), eating some Mexican food I cooked up and drinking a few good beers. Time to watch iCarly with B-Man.

Later.