Blowin' in the Wind

On Friday I was on Facebook reading my friend Judi's status and it said 30-40mph wind gusts on Saturday. I looked at my dad to confirm this weather forecast. Yep, windy day on Saturday. On the workout schedule: 2:45 ride with time trials and hill intervals. Great.

I used to be quite the chipper morning person. My second job out of college, I had a start time of 6:00am and I was always punctual. When I quit "the real world" almost two years ago, the morning person went with that job and now most days I don't get out of bed before 8:30. That means, I usually don't start my workouts until 10:00am at least. Saturday I had good intentions of starting my workout early, but no alarm means no getting out of bed early either.

So, Dave and I started our workout right around 11:00am which meant the winds were beginning to howl. And oh my how they did! We both had 2X time trials in which we had to ride like we would in our upcoming half Ironman. The first part of the time trial the wind was at our backs and we were flying. I was doing over 23 mph and I was comfortably in low zone 2. I was supposed to be in zone 3 and just could not get my heart rate up. Dave was going so fast I didn't see him after the first five minutes and we were on a straight road in the country! Because of the wind, we decided to turn around early in the time trial to make sure we could make it back to my parents' house to refill our water bottles. I turned around and it was like nothing I had ever experienced. The wind was so strong I was going 11 mph and my heart rate reached zone 5. I was so nervous I was going to get knocked over. Luckily, I made it through and back to my parents' house with time to spare before the next time trial.

The next time trial I was feeling even better. I passed some other bikers and thought to myself, "man, I'm getting better at this. I wish I was doing a flat course half Ironman to really see what I could do." Alas, though, I turned around and that's when my mind started to wander. I was starting to lose it. I stopped three times on the return trip just because I thought I was going to get knocked off my bike. Even standing in the wind, I had a hard time keeping my balance. Finally the time trial ended and I headed over to the hill to begin my hill repeats. The bad news was, it was a big hill (to me) and it was into the wind. I did my first interval and thought I was going to die. I stopped before the time was to expire and just let my watch run out. I soared down the hill and tried to talk myself into doing another one. The second one went the same as the first. Utter frustration. I actually said aloud (among many other bad, bad words) "if this is how Louisville is going to be, I'm never gonna finish." As I headed down the hill to begin #3, I ran into Dave who was about to begin his intervals. The next two were good. I fell into my OCD ways and began counting things. It's a tick that has helped me tremendously in my running. :) The last two intervals were just too much to handle. By the last one I collapsed over my handlebars and cried. Finally I headed home and began my run.

While watching the local news last night the weatherman said the wind gusts had reached 54 mph. And that was when we were on our bikes. How we stayed on our bikes, I don't know. Dave said this was the hardest bike in the hardest conditions he had ever done. I guess that makes me feel better. Surprisingly my numbers were pretty good from this ride and THAT definitely makes me feel better.