First Training Ride for BP MS150

My cold of the past few weeks turned into something more closely resembling a bronchial and/or upper respiratory infection, resulting in my having to work from home 3 out of 5 days of the week leading up to the Rockets Run. In the spirit of not making myself worse since the weather was still cold & wet, I stayed home and slept all day instead of running. I was able to return to work last week, and yesterday, I rode in my first training ride for the BP MS150.

It was so cold outside. Standing around waiting for the start, I had about 30 minutes of questioning whether or not I should even be there. Joel had picked up some leggings and shoe covers/warmers for me in San Francisco, and I'm so thankful he did! Now I just need to find one of those funky bright windbreakers. Maybe a scarf/neckwarmer of sorts too... or maybe I need to just suck it up and ride.

The ride itself was great. Standing around waiting to begin was not so great, but that's to be expected when you have 100+ folks going out of the same location. It wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't so cold, I think. The cold, combined with the fact that I was terrified I wouldn't be able to finish because I'm so out of shape, made it all seem worse than it really was.

We started shortly after 8:00 a.m. with the "slow" group, and that was fine except for getting behind a couple of very unsure/unsteady riders. There seemed to be little reason to the slowing/stopping and even less communication of the fact that they were going to do it. On a few occasions, it was almost as though they didn't realize there were people behind them. We were able to pass them and got on a stretch of road where we could ride at our own pace, which was still, admittedly, very slow.

At one point, Joel took off ahead of me and I was left to ride by myself. This wasn't a bad thing, though. I was pedaling along and had time to think about my fear before starting the ride, my hesitance to even do it (remember how I procrastinate and avoid things since I know I can't be perfect? perfect example here!), and my crummy attitude working up to the ride because of all of the above. What I realized as I kept spinning was that I was enjoying the ride, my body felt good doing it, and I have still been allowing my fears to keep me from doing things that are good for me, as well as fun. It was time to make a decision that was long overdue.

I decided to quit being a quitter.

It felt good.

Yesterday's ride was just at 26 miles.

Next weekend we have the option to ride 29.5 or 41 miles. I'm planning to continue doing the shorter rides. I'm told what I should do is to spin at relatively high rpm's to build my cardio-endurance, with a balance of resistance training to build muscle.

Looking forward to next week!

Today's workout

30 minutes Pilates

30 minutes Core Training/Stretching

45 minutes Spinerval 4.0 Muscle Breakdown