Longest Ride To Date This Season

Joy here...Um, I have something I need to tell you.  I think that my Trainer might be trying to kill me.

Seriously.

Earl

It all started on Thursday when I showed up for our weekly training session.  The Man is still under the weather, so I was going solo with the Trainer for the third week in a row (starting with that Thursday she made me suffer through "drop sets" that I wrote about).

This Thursday she tried to kill me with Earl.  Yep, that's right.  Earl.

Earl is her new 5.5kg medicine ball that she made me lift up over my head, bring down into a squat, slam against the floor, and repeat for a total of 30 times, followed by a wee break and another 30 times.  Now do you think that's premeditated attempted murder or something closer to manslaughter?

She's named this particular medicine ball "Earl," and so...cue the Dixie Chicks...clearly Earl had to die.

I did my workout.  Earl didn't kill me.  The Trainer's nefarious intents bore no fruit.

After surviving Earl, on Friday morning, the Trainer had it in mind for us to ride out to the west end of the city for a 50km flat ride, and then tag on a climb up Pink Lake at the end just for fun.

I really do think she's trying to kill me.

Is The Trainer giving me the evil eye???

I met up with her at 9am on Friday, and we met up with a couple of other friends--the Spinning Instructor and another friend who I rode with for the first time ever last summer during our 100km "Share the Road" awareness ride.  So off we headed into the paths and roads to the west, cycling directly into one heck of a head wind (that surely The Trainer ordered up specially as part of her plan to off me).

Riding at the front of our little group on the way out, I had to struggle just to keep the speed at around 25km/hr, but then when we turned around and that head wind turned into a lovely tail wind, without any effort at all, I was riding at a comfortable 32km/hr.  Once again, The Trainer's tricky headwinds didn't do me in.

But she wasn't done yet.

No no.

She had other plans up her sleeve.  So up Pink Lake we headed.  With 55kms of cycling in my legs, we were joined by Cili Padi so that we could roll into the park and begin cycling up the steep Pink Lake climb.  With the slightest incline in the road, my muscles started to complain.

They were screaming with leftover pain from Earl.

They were shouting from the winds.

They were crying as I just kept on going.

Pink Lake...didn't kill me this time!

Up, up, and up some more, until we all regrouped at Pink Lake, and I wasn't dead yet.  I foiled that Trainer once again.  Smiling to myself at my cleverness, she and I rolled out of the park to head for home...dodging lunchtime pedestrians and oblivious pathway users (clearly more obstacles that she was hoping to kill me with).

I survived it all and arrived home safe and sound, with just under 77kms in my legs.  My longest ride so far this season.

I can't believe that my legs are so strong so soon.  It's not even mid-May yet.  I guess that old adage is true:  what ever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

Hmmmmmm, maybe she's not trying to kill me after all....only make me stronger.

Over and out,
Joy