Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

It was great to have some recovery time this past week. My schedule consisted of the requisite three days of strength training, plus an hour of riding on Tuesday and Thursday and 2.5 hours of riding I have yet to do today. In addition, yesterday's scheduled riding was a "test" or time trial that I had to do. Given the fact that I don't have a lot of fancy equipment and the inconvenience of getting about five inches of snow within that time period, I had to do some creative thinking to figure out how to test myself.

In three weeks, I'll be testing myself again and tracking my progress, so I just needed to get a starting point. We actually have one of Coach Troy's Spinervals DVDs called Totally Time Trial, so I had a program to follow. The measurement part was taken care of by a brilliant idea from my husband. He suggested putting a computer on my back wheel and recording my mileage. (Obviously, my existing computer doesn't work because the front wheel doesn't spin on the trainer.) That way, in three weeks I can see if I have improved any if I am able to record more mileage during my next test.

My first effort resulted in a total distance of 14.32 and an average speed of 14.31 mph. I know that sounds pretty slow and I expect it to improve a lot. However, when I think about the days I was barely averaging 12 mph on a road ride, it doesn't seem that bad.

In other unrelated news, Pedal Pushers has me writing another article for them. It's set for release at the end of February, and this one will be about my journal as an "accidental athlete." I'm sure you'll all be awaiting it with bated breath.

One last thing—stay tuned for the announcement of an exciting new project. My husband and I are working on something that will hopefully make use of both our talents and our interest in mountain bike racing. It may be a few weeks before we're able to have anything concrete to show, but it's something we're very enthusiastic about.