weekend in VT, part II

on day 2 we all awoke with some tight legs to say the least. being up till mid nite, doing 86 miles, going to see team sponsors and meeting up for a team dinner with one of our team advisors, who was in town from Atlanta make for a busy day!
we left a bit earlier Sunday and were welcomed with warmer air, bright blue skies and more hills. after 30' or so we hit a long undulating climb. nothing crazy but it warmed us up to say the least. another 30' we road up a long climb around Mt. Mansfield. It's still snow covered. really beautiful back drop! we kept the pace high riding shoulder to shoulder like the day before. that reminds me. at this weekend, being still early in the season and with the entire team there was quite a bit of "flexing" going on. guys know what i mean. remember in college when you were playing a pick up game of football, basketball or what ever. the girls walk by and you flex. not so much that its obvious but you did. you know it. suck in the gut. tighten the arms a bit, real subtle like. girls are even more guilty of this! they do it so much that its second nature to them. flip there hair, and give you "the eye". "what? i wasn't flittering". yeah what ever!

anyway we didn't have a pose down but when your riding shoulder to shoulder with teammates the last thing you will let happen is for your wheel to slip back even the slightest bit. and so it begins. everyone riding up the hills at 400 + watts holding a conversation trying to act like its nothing. trying to show everyone that your strong, with out realy "showing" it...

at the national rowing team training center in NJ. they often go out for long endurance rows. 90', 2 hr. maybe, at a low stroke rate. But what makes this different than any college or club row is that it's easy... as long as your boat is ahead of the others. and so begins the "flexing". In rowing this type of workout is called steady state. It is also taken on the nick name of "teti-state". in honor of the men’s national team coach Mike Teti whom only takes winners. its not long before your rowing as hard as you can gasping for air yet trying to look effortless.

If you ask my teammates they'll say, "what! thats not what happened?!" but it did and they all know it.

ok back to riding bikes. lots of hills today and the miles wore on. windy too. steamrolling along. we averaged about 19mph for the day, and for you wattage weenies out there we were pushing between 250-300 watts on the flats and 400+ on the hills, when on the frount. until the last 1:30 when that attacking started. after suffering for a bit i brought my self back to life with some caffeinated cliff shots and laid down some hard attacks. a bit of hard riding and again we laid down some fast pace line riding for a bit. i felt great today and really pushed hard on some of

the climbs. as we came in to the last 40' or so we settled down and enjoyed the view as we rode on the bike path next to lake Champlain.
a great weekend. its so nice in this area of VT i was really happy to get up there again with or without the cycling.
thaks for reading, pictures to come soon!