Happy Christmas week!  I hope that all of you are enjoying your respective holidays and partaking in as much holiday food and drink you can endure.  Last week was memorable in a number of ways, including, but not limited to quality time with family, eating/drinking/cooking/baking/repeat, and burnout.  Ah yes, it was inevitable: too much alone time on the bike equals burnout.  I wasn’t riding my bike with friends and I was trying to adhere to my dang training schedule all by myself.  I had a chat with my SAT last week, who reminded me (again and again) how imperative it was to ride WITH OTHER PEOPLE.  He suggested that I take the rest of the week off in order to clear my head and take advantage of the time with our visiting family, then reassess how I feel about riding.  Well, since I’m not totally stubborn (insert SAT’s rollicking laughter), I took that advice and merrily went about enjoying the rest of the week bike-free.

Yesterday, I felt rested enough and fresh enough mentally to restart my training regime with two friends.  We went on a nice ride together (37 miles, to be exact) and I came back home refreshed and….smiling.  Shocking, isn’t it?  Today, those same friends and I did some interval training.  What is that?  Basically, interval training can be described as short periods of work followed by rest.  The main aim is to improve speed and cardiovascular fitness.  We followed a route that consisted of 10 short climbs; we started by coasting down the first hill, then climbed up the next one as quickly as we could….then we coasted down the next hill, then climbed up the next hill as fast as we could….and so on and so forth.  Here is what that looked like:

Since today was a cold and windy day, the hill sprints were very effective in warming us up.  Once in a while during those hill sprints, I imagined my SAT chirping encouragement to me.  I’m still not sure if that inspired me or annoyed me.

Tomorrow will be my rest day, mainly because I have plans to go hiking with some friends.  Have a safe New Year’s celebration and see you in ’15!