Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Comfort Blanket

Each Tuesday I arrive to ride with the Spinners Club and jump into the 16-17 avg. pace for our 34 mile ride. Each week as we finish I tell myself that “next week” I am going to move up in pace. I am at a point where I know I have more push in my legs. My goal on these Tuesday night rides is to push myself and get a bit stronger and faster. And just like that as I get my gear all on and I again jump into the 16-17 pace group and scold myself for wrapping myself up in this comfort blanket.

Last night I had talked myself into the same… until Scott said let’s just do it and just like that we rolled out with the 17-18 group. Amazing I felt great and never felt as if I were over my head. At the half way point we were at an average pace of 18.5 mph. We finished at 18mph. Legs were not trashed and energy was high. Ready for another repeat of this next week!!

Tonight I am hitting the weights and then diving into some chores at the house. For some odd reason the cleaning fairy does not visit our house and our bathroom needs a deep cleaning. I will be bringing out the yellow gloves for this.


Robin

15 comments:

Mel-2nd Chances said...

that fairy doesn't stop by our place either.. :( Nice job on the ride!

Marlene said...

Great job stepping out of your comfort zone a little and rolling with the faster group. Sounds like you made the right call!

Shannon said...

I love it when I move out of my "comfort zone." It's really not as uncomfortable as our mind builds it up to be.

Wes said...

You have pace groups with 2 mph difference? LOL... Here it is "beginner" or "get your ass left behind" :-)

Runner Mom said...

Awesome job!!! Did you get 2 sets of yellow gloves? I need a pair as well! Ugh!!
Love ya,
Susan

Stuart said...

That's awesome, like Shannon said our comfort zone has a lot of zone!

Chris said...

I think that someone is holding the cleaning fairy hostage.......... I'm gettin' nothin' at my place either! :-/

MJ said...

Good job on stepping up to the next level. It sounds like you'll be leading that group soon!

Anonymous said...

Everytime I read your and Scott are heading out I envy you! Can you talk to my hubby, pleeeease!!!!!!!

Grey Beard said...

A interesting rewards system you have there Robin. ROTFLMFAO

Saw the cleaning fairy on the bike trail this morning. She is stuck in the 12-13mph group and is very depressed (I think it's the job, but no good having the cleaning fairy start reconsidering her occupation, so kept quiet about that).

I gave her lots of sweet chocolate and sent her a link to your post. How long to get from here to there at 18 mph? :D

Marci @All Things Wonderful said...

That's awesome! Congrats.

Kevin said...

Way to go. Sometimes you just have to get out of that comfort zone to find out you have it in you

zanne said...

there's no fairy at our house either!

it's very typical for runners to stick within a comfort zone on the bike & stay there ... as runners, we're used to finding a pace & settling in. In bike racing / riding, there are a lot of surges ... sometimes i feel that its like throwing an interval (or two or three or more!) into the middle of a marathon or something -part of cycling is having the juice to go with the surges -- they always settle down - when you feel yourself starting to crack or lose it - just hang on & count for 10 pedal strokes - then 10 more if you need to ... it will often get back to a pace that you can maintain - the trick is digging deep for that brief time that it really picks up. Nice job on picking it up a bit!

After a year of racing, this is something I still work on constantly!

Unknown said...

The Cleaning Fairy is locked up in our house until she can finish cleaning this mess up around here.

Great Job!

ShirleyPerly said...

Hooray for the new level! And I love that photo.

Can you please clean my bathrooms too? :-)