Apparently I'm "pretty strong". NO WAY!

[Jiffer]

As many of you know, I have had health problems that have kept me from riding very fast or far. I generally ride somewhere between 30-60 minutes during the week at 130 heart rate or lower, always as flat as possible and have built up to 28 miles as my longest once a week ride, which I haven't even done in a while.

Every time I do more than one ride above 130 heart rate, my fatigue and dizziness symptoms return. (I have adrenal fatigue issues and several other things that cause fatigue. I'm seeing a naturopathic doctor.) I had an epiphany recently, though. What if I only did one "hardish" ride a week? And then give my body plenty of time to recover before I do it again, riding easy in between? It's when I do it more than once back to back that it seems to cause problems.

So that's my newest thing. I did a pretty short but pretty hard ride a week ago and today decided to try the route our club does on Saturdays to see how I'd do. If I recover fine, I plan to do it WITH the club, which will be epic. I've been dying to ride with the club again for a year and a half.

This is the "short" route they do of 22 miles. It has three climbs, none of which are too killer compared to the long route, which I used to do. However, I haven't been doing ANY climbing for the most part, so even the 1.5 mile climb of about 5% on Benson was a big deal for me.

I rode with my husband today, who pulled most of the time. It was great fun going "fast" on the flats and "super fast" on the descents, my specialty. When that Benson climb came near the end of the ride I was a bit nervous, as I'm used to doing it earlier in the ride (I started at a different point than usual since we recently moved the opposite end of the route.) Anyway, I did it okay. I was hurting for sure, but got in my rhythm and pushed myself. I knew it was slow compared to my old pace, but felt good for my first real climb in over a year.

As I neared the top my stomach actually started to churn, I hit my lap button, started coasting and recovering. I was breathing very hard and a guy cyclist comes along side me and says, "You're pretty strong." Ummm. Excuse me? I had to have him repeat it because I thought surely I didn't hear him correctly. He said it again and I told him that was very kind of him. I looked up my fastest time on that climb (cause I'm a stat monster) and found I did it 3 minutes slower today. If only that guy could have seen me in my glory days.

But he certainly made my day. Wow. Climbing has never been my strong suit, so to hear that I'm strong when I'm not even close to as strong as I used to be, is a lovely thing to hear indeed.