The Professor and The Trainer

Joy here...Back in February The Man and I started doing a once-weekly strength training session with the trainer who owns the gym where I took spinning classes this last winter with my friend Cili Padi.  Since going to Malaysia in May and June our strength training had fallen off the wagon, but we had still remained friends with our trainer.  She lives just up the road from us, and we get along with her really well.    So when I rode in the park for the first time this season back in April, it was her, our trainer, who came along for the ride up to the first scenic lookout, over that first steep hill.  She's also introduced us to another spinning instructor at that gym who we've inducted into our cycling "sisterhood", or what one of my friends, SK, refers to as Team Sunday!  (Thanks SK, the name has stuck.)

The Professor and The Trainer

This new inductee into our little club (that is, of course, wholly inclusive and friendly and only ironically an exclusive club) is a professor at one of the local universities where I did my postdoctoral fellowship.  As of July 1st, I've given up my own job as a professor and started up my own consulting firm, but my heart still has plenty of room in it for academics (heck, The Man is a prof!), and so I'm not surprised that this professor/spinning instructor is becoming a fast friend on these rides.

Now neither the professor nor the trainer were free on Thursday when Cili Padi, our other friend SK (who has the same kind of bike as I do, my fellow Opus rider), and I went for our ride through the park, but both were free on Friday morning for a quick and dirty ride up that first hill, and so I decided to join the professor and the trainer for a power ride.

Here they come in the distance...

The day was a hot one, a good 10 C hotter than the previous morning when I met up with the other two women, and you have to imagine us riding through the sun speckled pathway with the shadows of the leaves making a motley of the world at our feet as the cicadas sang summer all around us like tiny buzz saws.  The air hung humidly on our skin, and we were grateful for a bit of speed that gave us a bit of a breeze.  We chatted as we rode, and once we hit the parkway within the confines of the park, I put my bike into its hard gear and pushed myself to get some speed up.  I went inwards into my imagination as my pedals turned over to a steady rhythm, the pain in my quads growing and letting me know that I was working myself.  I pretended I was in a triathlon, riding all alone out there against the clock, pushing my legs to see what I could do.  I was so into my own imaginings, that when I turned around to look, the professor and the trainer were nowhere to be seen.  So I pulled up to take some pictures and drink some of my water (because I still haven't quite mastered the art of drinking while on the move).

The view from the top of the 8% climb up the hill.

They blew past me, their wheels whizzing like tiny, mechanical insects from a science fiction movie, and I quickly clipped back into my pedals to catch up to them and begin that hard climb up to the Pink Lake lookout.  I passed the lady who had joined up with us in the park; I passed the professor; and then I passed the trainer.  I was back in my own head, pushing my legs like I don't usually push them when I know I have the whole loop of the park to complete.  I kept my speed up at around 12.7km/hr up that climb (when the guys do it, their speed is around 16km/hr usually), and I've never been able to top 11km/hr before, so I knew I was pushing hard.  I made it to the top with plenty of time ahead of the professor and the trainer and took in some much-needed water, huffed and puffed to catch my breath, and smiled to myself at my little achievement.

And then I crossed my fingers in the hope that after such a solid effort up the hill I'd have enough energy to roll back home.

The good news is that I made it back safely and soundly, and so now I know that I can keep on riding even after pushing myself hard.

But my legs are paying for it today.  Going up and down stairs hurt a bit...but I guess it's a good hurt, because it reminds me that I can do more than I think I can, which is always a good thing to learn about oneself.

Over and out,
Joy