Hill Training Coming Along

After doing a 35 mile ride on Sunday with Oscar from Newton out to my brother's house in Holden, I feel like I'm making a lot of improvements in my hill-climbing. We climbed 2,200 feet during that ride. He rode back for a total of 70 miles. But it was mostly downhill on the way back! Anyhow I felt real strong during the first 2/3 of the ride and then started to lose a bit of my zip. There were a couple of very long steep hills coming into Worcester and I really lost my spin on those but it's all good.

Last night during the Tuesday night NEBC women's ride I felt very strong on the hills, so what I'm doing is, somehow, paying off. I think I'll dedicate my climbing workouts to weekends, which frees me up more for group rides during the week. I recently read that you don't really need to do a real hill repeat workout if you normally ride in a hilly area. Maybe this is true - I have yet to do a hill repeat workout this year and I am improving - however, maybe I'd improve more if I did. Worth a shot.

Time to Get Off My Ass

So, the S-Works is a great bike. So smooth over the bumps. Saturday I had some problems where it would shift into a higher gear all by itself - turns out the front dérailleur was rubbing against the chain on the inside. There are small screws you can turn that adjust its position in and out (high and low) and I think it will now work properly after some minor twists.

Spin class tonight due to rain. Not a very lengthy workout, but much better than nothing, especially after taking Friday and Sunday off. Saturday I climbed over 2,300 feet in the course of a 27 mile ride, and I am hoping it will pay off - somehow.

I think it's time to add more workouts - not necessarily longer, but I think 5-6 days/week is my goal now, where I've been at 4 days a week of riding lately. This is always a challenge with weather and other obligations, and it's damn hard to try to lose weight while upping the workout schedule. I'm starting to wonder if losing 10 or 15 lbs will help me, or if it's even possible, because to get enough carbs to keep the pace up, I can't seem to cut back enough on my overall daily caloric intake. Maybe the only way to do it is to lose weight during the winter, and head into spring already at target weight. That's one tough proposition - to lose weight during December and January. Ok, now it sounds like I'm just starting to rationalize and make excuses.
Damn it, I am doing that.

So, the Sox are not on until 10pm local time so the plan is watch the first inning and then call it a night.