I've been reading some mental training books, because The Bible told me to. And cause it seems like an important part of training people don't pay attention to, right?

But I'm starting to think that maybe all this thinking about thinking is just messing me up more.

Chapters like "Why You're Not Tough Enough" really don't help. I suppose in the long run they might, but I know I'm usually pretty good so I dunno why things have been a mess lately

There is rumor that Floyd Landis will show up for Mount Diablo.

Mt Tam Hillclimb this past weekend. Was suppose to be good preparation and it went better. But still not good. Just hard in the middle and I started getting passed and falling apart and felt like I was going backwards. Ended up middle of the pack. Not bad, but not good.

I know that I can go harder and do better.

Been doing workouts with my new, revised, higher wattage goal/threshold of 180-200W. Harder, but not that hard. I should be able to keep that up, but in a race I just start worrying about too many things.

It seems to me that we are typically vastly more capable than we realize or believe.

I've been riding using my power meter and I have a set threshold for what is supposedly the most I can put out for an extended period of time. But, looking back now at other races I have done, I definitely went harder than I supposedly can go.

I need to snap out of this. And get back into things.


Mt Shasta Hill Climb, 1:49. Not good in the middle. Struggled all by myself, no one around me. Steve came back down and rode with me the last 2 miles and I went hard again. Obviously, I can do it. Just need to find the motivation or something

There are two fires going on right now, somewhere, big wildfires. And the air was so bad Wednesday I couldn't swim, couldn't breath. Yesterday, i was antsy though so I made Steve go for a ride in the afternoon. It was less than pleasant.

I've been reading the Bible lately. The Triathlete's Training Bible. Trying to figure out how to plan the next year, how to make it really really good. There's way to much to think about. I wish I had a coach. Even making a calendar is hard. How do I know what races to do?

The Bible did suggest some reading on mental skills, which I need, since I have a tendancy to freak out. It's hard to read the stuff though; it comes across very new-agey. I'm suppose to practice breathing every night or before I work out. But, I don't know, breathing wasn't my problem. Well, at least not when there weren't fires.

Fire?

Yesterday, the smoke was so thick in the air from whatever fire was going on. I went to the pool to swim but it made my head and throat hurt. And I was the only person at a pool usually filled with little kids.

Apparently, air quality does make a difference.

I Hate Cycling

I was keeping a training log, but not a log, because I have one of those. I was keeping more of a notes on training, tracking how it's going, thoughts, etc. But I thought I'd do it online now.

'under an hour' because how fast am I going to do diablo? 'under an hour'. hopefully. *fingers crossed*

Did another cycling race this weekend, just trying to gain some handling skills/experience. But, you know what, I hate cycling races. You're too much at the mercy of every whim of the group. They all speed up, you have to speed up. I'm not good at that crap. Speeding up and slowing down.

I'm good at going one relatively fast pace for a long time.

I finished 4th out of 4. (We can discuss the problems with women's races and small fields some other time.) They combined us with the Category 3s and I was hanging just fine at first. But it was hard uphill and they were just hammering and I got dropped. I tried to stay in there, time-trialing by myself, but they lost me on the descent and then I got caught by two other woman. We had a lovely ride for a little while. Discussed cycling, bulimia, being 40 (not me, them). Then they dropped me too, cause I was just done.

When I'm done, I'm really done. Looked at my data after and it took 11 mintues for me to go the one mile uphill. The last 7 miles took a long time. At points I was going so slow I thought I would fall over. But eventually I finished. And because I got 4th I got a t-shirt and $5. Sweet.