Guess What? My laptop bag is hail proof! (Training this week)

My training during the week started off with a bang. I hit the Murph WOD (see previous post) on Monday and my upper body was sore the entire week because of it. Love it. Following the Murph workout the family headed over to the single best community pool in the world, Crofton Swim and Tennis Club. They have an awesome opening weekend Memorial Day Kid/Adult fun day. They have lots of activities through out the day for both kids and adults. The kids have a watermelon relay and a juice dive. The adults have a splash contest (3 meter spring board, oh yeah!) and a beer dive (picture 50 grown adults diving into the deep end trying to grab as many beers as they can). Needless to say I did plenty of liquid carbo loading and was ready for the upcoming week of training.

Motorpacing

Tuesday I rode to Hains point in the evening and it was surprisingly light on riders. I did get a chance to meet Chuck Hutcheson and a few others. I had heard that he sometimes motorpaces and I wanted to talk to him about tagging along at some point. Hopefully we will link up soon. He was on an easy spin night because he just got back from the Tour of Somerville, where he placed 10th, very impressive. So I parted ways with their group and started my intervals. I did 3 long intervals of about 4-5 minutes each. Then I did a 2 minute followed by a 1 minute interval. After that I called it a night and rode back to my car (about 8 miles away on the bike trails).

On Wednesday, I set my bike up for commuting, slapped the laptop onto the rack and headed into work. The ride was uneventful and I didn't push too much because the soreness from Murph was really starting to set in. I showered, changed and headed over to the Desperation Deli (coined term by some of the folks I work with) near our building for my post ride to work breakfast sammich and chocolate milk. Yummy!!

While the ride into work was uneventful, I can't say the same for the ride home. During the day, I was looking at the temperatures and they were creeping up to the mid 90's with a feel like temp of 104. Stttickyy. Knowing this, I was drinking heavily (not alcohol but water) throughout the day. Well as it got closer to head home time, the skies started looking a little ominous and sure enough as I walked across the street to change into my riding clothes, it started raining lightly. I usually love the rain while riding but something about the clouds told me that there was more than rain in store for me.

I headed out into a light drizzle with my laptop bag setup for inclement weather. As I got closer to DC the rain started to pick up. Nice heavy drops of rain that stung a bit when they hit your face. Well those heavy drops started turning into peanut M&M sized hail. Hmmm, what to do now? I kept trudging on and managed to avoid most of the hail but occasionally one smacked me pretty good. I will tell you, it did keep my mind off the pain in the my legs. The hail lasted for about 10 minutes and then I was in the clear after another 10 minutes of heavy rains. One thing I can say is that not only is my laptop bag rain proof but it is also HAIL PROOF. Nice work Topeak.

Scott "Meesile" Giles

Frank "the Tank" Ramos

Thursday I was working down at Pax River and planned to go for a ride at some point while I was down there. Earlier in the week, I had shot an email out to our team regarding rides in the area for Thursday. Most of them agreed that the ride formerly known as the "aero" ride was the one to do.  It basically goes out and back and covers about 40-45 miles. I met up with the group that was about 8-9 guys. Bike Doctor was well represented in this smallish group because we had Frank "the Tank" (aka "Framos") Ramos and Scott "Meesile" Giles.

We started out at a chatting pace and picked things up where Giles and I were riding tempo at the front until I finally decided to peel back and enjoy a little draft. The paceline got started from there and never really stopped. We had a nice tail/crosswind on the way out and we were flying. Each of us was taking our turn at the front for an extended period of time. We got to the turn around point and stopped for a water refuel and pee break. As we were sitting around you could tell that we were all thinking about the headwind we had in store for us on the way back and were hoping for a MAGICAL BUS to arrive and take us back home. After a few minutes we realized our bus wasn't coming and decided to head on back.

Thankfully the Meesile was with us because he pulled at least half of the way home at INHUMAN SPEEDS. Scott stands at least 6'4" and you would think he would produce a nice draft but that man can get arrow and cut through the wind like a knife. I didn't even try to match his pulls but did my fair share along with the rest of the group (Frank was certainly not slacking on his pulls either). A couple of guys broke off from the ride to head home (including Frank) and we continued our pulling ways. I could tell we were getting close and for fun I decided to throttle things up a little after one of Scott's monster pulls. This gapped Scott and his wife Katie (a bona fide bad ass in her own right) and forced Scott to chase back up to me with his wife in tow. I didn't realize that he had lost contact and just as he was catching on I looked down, saw a wheel and flicked my elbow. The boy didn't hesitate a second and made another monster pull after having pulled for a mile or so and chasing down the gap to me. Studddddly!!

Great week of training and looking forward to working with the team at Ride Sally Ride this weekend put on by Whole Wheel Velo Club!