“They feel good.” I said to myself, while by myself, looking at my stretched out legs last night.
My guess is the point that one begins having conversations to an imaginary audience about their legs, speaking for them in the third person, is an important step in gaining fitness. Or, I am simply proud of my gams for staying strong through two back to back heavy riding days; a joyful, yet rigorous activity they have not experienced since September.
These remarkable two days of hard pedaling outside along the California coast were shared with my amazing teammates, the age group dominating, Lynne Fiedler, and the visiting east coast powerhouse on two wheels, Kat Zeiler. Those two ladies put on a clinic for me of how to climb steep hills, which was just start of an incredible body, mind, heart, and soul immersive personal growth week that I am calling, “Humility Camp, 2019.”
My teammate's Lynne Fiedler and Kat Zeiler, just before chomping up our first climb on Sunday, Latigo Canyon.
My legs were initially not thrilled about Camp.
They acted like my sixteen-year-old self when I was forced to go out for a family dinner on a Saturday night instead of staying home to stare at my beige, landline phone, willing it to rattle in its cradle from a phone call from my then-current crush. Miraculously, I always had a hilarious night out with my family, and forgot all about my heart-wrenching plans, because I was surrounded by people who already loved me; a realization which shook out my lovelorn, angsty attitude, and brought me back to life. Therefore, at about the third hour of my four hour bike ride yesterday, my legs woke up from their, “but, we’re so used to running,” all day funk, and showed me without saying a word, “Okay, we’re here for you, T.”
This is a post-awesome-long run photo I grabbed on Saturday with my athlete Ned, but captures the feeling I had when my riding legs decided to engage during my Monday ride along PCH.
I felt a surge of energy and strength the rest of the ride, which I appreciated, because we have many more miles to pedal before the week is up.
In fact, every single day this week is stacked with stomach turning workouts that will challenge me beyond anything I have completed this year, or rather any year up until now, but that is exactly the point; I need to leap out of my comfort zone and push my limits in order to improve as a triathlete.
I plan on crying at least once, either from exhaustion, embarrassment, or elation. Regardless, my money is on tasting flowing salty tears before Sunday.
Next, I want to give you a sneak peek of what is on the agenda for “Humility Camp,” but I have to go, because besides a lot of swimming, riding, running, I will be mostly driving this week. There are a small handful of workouts I can complete in my zip code, but the bulk of them require a minimum of two freeway interchanges, AKA time sitting in traffic.
Therefore, my apologies, I know am leaving you all with a gaping cliffhanger, but I do plan to post updates on Social Media throughout the week, and I promise to give a full, gazillion word count play-by-play of camp next Tuesday, if I survive…
The song and video choice this week is a classic from Meatloaf, "It's All Coming Back To Me Now," which has been playing on repeat in my head since my breakthrough moment mid-ride ride on Monday, and sums up the theme of the week perfectly. Enjoy.:)