Thank You Steve and Steve

This was taken 2 1/2 years ago at Memphis in May, my first Olympic distance race, and also 10 lbs heavier!

It's a new year – woohoo! - and a new season – again, woohoo! :)

It's also time for the ubiquitous baseline tests – all-out efforts of each of the three sports (swim, bike, run) to gauge base fitness when heading into this year's training and racing. These are done at the beginning of every year, since factors such as age, conditioning, illness, and experience all affect an individual's fitness level from year to year.

The tests are not for the faint of heart. Two years ago I was blissfully ignorant. I had just hired Jen as my triathlon coach and I didn't know what I didn't know. I went by faith in Jen's experience and knowledge into each gut-wrenching trial. Each test consists of all-out efforts for approximately 20 minutes, with long warmups beforehand and long cooldowns afterward. It's equally a test of mental endurance, as it's entirely the ruling of the mind that commands the body to find its breaking point. If you think 20 minutes of all-out effort isn't “that hard”, think again. Imagine a hill in your neighborhood, a nice long one, steep too, that may take you 1 minute to run to the top. Your heart is about to burst out of your chest when you get there as you gasp for breath and contemplate puking your guts out.

Now go do that 19 more times. Then call me and say “It wasn't that hard.” Dare ya :)

Today it was about the bike. I had a great night's sleep, over 9 unbroken hours in fact, and I was well rested. I was psyched about the test, crazy I know.

Steve decided to run on the treadmill at the same time, which only added fuel to my fire. He says he loves to watch me train and I can't help but be convinced of his heart when I see the gleam in his eye. I wish every wife had a husband like this. Though it isn't the primary reason I train and race hard, having his support and knowing he takes great pleasure in watching his wife improve year after year gives me the greatest pleasure to please him in this way. Training without the love and encouragement of my awesome husband would be a serious chink in the armor of my drive.

I had all my tunes lined up on my iPod and I clipped in and settled into a nice warmup. At 15 minutes I did some 1-minute accelerations to 100+ rpms, which are meant to “fire” the legs a bit and get them accustomed to rapid pedaling.

At 25 minutes I began shifting to bigger gears, sitting up on the Big Chain Ring and gradually increasing effort. When the 30 minute mark rolled up, I shifted to an even bigger gear that I knew was a serious challenge but one I could pedal at 90 rpms or above.

I was officially in The Test.

I held back a TINY bit for the first 5 minutes, not wanting to blow it out right away. It's amazing what a difference 5 minutes can make when you're pushing hard and suffering. My heart rate was sitting at 162 which meant I was hurting, but I still had plenty of headroom to climb further.
After 5 minutes my heart rate had climbed to 170 and I looked down at my bike computer. Immediately my head screamed “Don't look at that! You'll just trash your mojo!”

But I was not to be denied today. I alternated between watching TV (where Steve was playing Firefly, the TV series spinoff of the movie Serenity) and focusing on matching my cadence to whatever was playing on my iPod. I couldn't resist peeking at my computer to see the elapsed time and I would do a quick calculation of how much time I had left...11 minutes...9 ½ minutes...7 ½ minutes...

With 5 minutes left, I kicked it up into an even harder gear. As if in response, my iPod queued up Steve Vai's There's a Fire in the House. How appropriate - my legs were on fire! This is a high-cadence, nothing-but-guitar song that would make you get a speeding ticket if you were driving. You can't help but go overboard :).

It was more than enough to spur me on. I rocketed to the end, emptying out everything my legs had in them just as the song likewise went down in blazing glory.

Pedaling easy, I peeked at my heart rate monitor and my computer, pleased with the results. The best part was that I averaged over 21 mph – worlds away from my newbie speed of 15 mph 4 years ago.

Thank you Steve and Steve :)