boulevard

I just signed up for my first ever road race. On a bike. Not preceded by a swim or followed by a run. I blame the guys at CTSfor putting me up to it: I believe the comment had something to do with the length of my femurs. One may be slightly longer than the other, as I once learned at Specialized BG fit class, but they still know how to ride a bike. (Update: Upon telling my new pals at CTS that I’d signed up, they wrote to politely ask if it would be OK to place wagers on me. In the spirit of fun, I said yes. Now I am shaking in my office chair.)

The view from halfway up Mt. Lemmon recently.

The view from halfway up Mt. Lemmon recently.

On Saturday we’ll be packing up the Jetta for another 4:45 take-off. (Apparently Mark actually enjoys this sort of thing. Witnessing his usual sleep patterns, this is beyond me.) This time, my faithful Specialized Amira will be my steed of choice. It’s weight over aerodynamics for Boulevard, a 45-mile, draft-legal, hilly race out in El Centro, an hour from downtown San Diego.

The dictionary tells me that a boulevard is “a wide street, typically lined with trees.” For me, it might take on new meaning on Saturday. I’m thinking “a stretch of road, typically lined with pain and humiliation.” Even if I come dead last, however, I know I’m going to learn something from it. I’m just hoping my next post won’t be titled “Boulevard of broken dreams.”

Queue the Katie-style Google search: “How to race a bike.”

If I don’t come last, I’m going to treat myself to another Mexican pig cookie from Dos Palmos bakery in Leucadia, where Mark and I dined last weekend on a drizzly Saturday.

photo

Today’s workout: Low cadence/hard gear intervals with the SBX gang, 4 x hard hill repeats, 30 minute out and back at 70.3 pace with the last five minutes at 10k pace.