are we done yeti?

It seems like every thing that means something to you makes you ask at one point or another, "WHY did I sign up for this?!" or "Why am I doing this to myself?" Whether you're totally frustrated with yourself or with another person that you're looking to for help or motivation, you question it or them at some point. Well this week, I definitely had my fair share of questioning!!

Although the week wrapped up with a new personal high for me in terms of training, it started off as being totally frustrating. Tuesday morning I hit the gym for a spin class. (Typically I would have done a solo road ride, but my sister Liz wanted to ride too. And since she doesn't have a bike yet, I waited for her to wake up for a class. Butttt she overslept.. and I can't blame her too much- we're Hudsons!) so I went solo to the gym. It ended up being the first spin class I ever walked out of.

I could not believe what this lady had us all doing within the first 5 minutes. Obviously I'm nowhere near qualified to run a spin class and I would never claim to be a certified instructor or anything like that, but having been around some of the best coaches and athletic trainers in the country for a couple years, I know enough about the body to know what's NOT good for it in the long run. And seriously, the instructor of this particular class didn't have a clue. She had everyone doing 30+ second intervals of standing sprints on the lowest resistance, for multiple reps and sets... and not one simulated climb or anything on high resistance. I can't think of many things that a spin class could incorporate that would be any worse for your knees. After 15 minutes of watching this lady spin literally out of control on her bike (her butt was bouncing everywhere, and she couldn't maintain any kind of balance it seemed like for more than a few minutes!) I looked around the room and saw everyone else doing the same thing, then asked myself why I was doing this.. what good could it do for me? And when I couldn't think of one single and honest answer, I walked out.

I didn't want to go home without feeling like I got stronger that day so I ended up doing some easy lifting for my lower body. It felt good to put some pressure on a couple muscle groups that I haven't directly challenged in the past few months, so it was kinda fun and I felt good after that.

Wednesday morning I hit the pool for my first interval work-out in a year. Ryan suggested before I went that I did the ladder; a series of alternating sprints and recovery laps.. always sprinting the 25m in one direction and recovering in the other. So I did! It goes like this: 25m (pace), 50m(sprint-pace), 75m(sprint-pace-sprint), 100m(pace-sprint-pace-sprint), and back down... you get the point. I took about 20 seconds rest in between sets. I don't know but I think Ryan usually starts off with the first "step" in the ladder as a 25m sprint, but I started it as a paced lap so that I could end the ladder with a sprint. Gotta end it with a bang!! I did a 300m warm-up before doing the ladder and a 300 cool-down, totaling 1000m for the day. Not too bad.

It was kinda funny.... when I got out, an older lady who was jogging laps to get warmed up for the water aerobics class asked me, "So how much swimming did you do?!" I told her "Well I ended up doing 1000 today.. the sprints killed me!" And she called over to her older male friend and said like a proud grandmother or something, "Can you believe that? She did 1000 laps today!! See, I knew you were in here for a while! That's great honey.." haha. Yeah I totally corrected her and said the sprints might have literally killed me if I swam 1000 laps of them! but I think she was just as happy for me and my 1000m. :) it was cute.

Anyway Thursday it was back on the road bike for at least an hour to keep building the base miles. I wanted to see if I could improve my average for the 2nd time in a row since I conquered my little "Quest for 20" but sadly, PCH was closed and I was forced to start out south towards Newport. Starting off with a head wind opposed to finishing with it like I usually do, I think screwed with my head. I knew my legs were tired to begin with for this ride but I really struggled on the hills in Newport that day for some reason. I managed to average 17.4 mph the way there and was about to call it quits and head back so I could save my legs for a big weekend, when a group of men from La Habra Cyclery pulled up next to me at a red light. I decided not to turn around at the next one and wanted to see how I could keep up with their pace on my own, a couple bike lengths behind them. I BARELY could for just a couple miles but I did! Until they pulled over to hit a starbucks. haha. I was kinda bummed actually. But decided to get home this time, "for reals". I was able to maintain some pretty good speed around 21-22 for most of the way and got my average back up to 18.7 by the end of the ride.

Took Friday off as planned but also decided to take Saturday off too when Ryan and I decided to take James up on his offer to do a 3 hour mtb ride with him and Beth on Sunday! I knew it would be tough for me no matter what to ride for that long since I've never done more than 2 hours on the trails. So I wanted to feel completely rested. Not sure I did on Sunday morning still, but I was definitely excited and looking forward to fun times with Team Tall and Team Small!

We headed out and got to El Moro a little before 8am and Beth and James pulled up shortly after. A little ways into our ride the boys wanted to descend down Rattlesnake (a trail I've never done because Ryan says it's super sketchy) so Beth and I agreed to meet back up with them at another spot before we all would climb I Think I Can. Well, I totally blew it and made a wrong turn... forcing Beth to take several scenic routes to get to a spot where I knew we could meet them (sorry beth!). One thing I have unexpectedly learned from mountain biking: my sense of direction sucks!! And it will totally be a while before I agree to splitting up from the boys again. :) That is, if they even ask to. which I highly doubt will happen any time soon!

When we all met up again it was lots of long and steady climbing up I Think I Can. I have to say, Ryan was a champ throughout the whole ride. Not only did he dominate every single thing we rode, he wore the camelbak the whole ride with all my crap and extra water for us, was a great tour guide :) AND snagged some cool shots throughout our whole excursion. Yeah, I love my boy!

Done with the first climb, thank god:



Schleck and I hanging out, feeling good after cruising through some fun single track:


LOVED this one trail we took that was a steady decline towards the beach. So much fun, so good call, Ry! And just AWESOME views. Ryan took us down that so we could see this and I was really happy he did:

It was the raddest view I've seen in a lonnng time. We all decided it would be awesome to live there, not just because of how beautiful it is but because it looks as though everyone uses golf carts to get around town. So awesome!!

Not sure why I look so pissed off in this pic... hopefully I don't always look like that! shoot. but here are us groupies minus Ryan unfortunately:


taking PCH back to the trails for some killer climbing (please note that I'M pulling RYAN!! yeah-ya. thanks for the rare pic, James. haha):


The second half of our ride seriously felt twice as hard as the first. Not sure if it was harder or not statistically, but my legs were just spent after the amount of time we did already, since that's about how long my total rides usually are. So I'm sure part of it was just pushing my body to go longer than its used to. But we ended up with a solid climb all the way back to the car.. I seriously just wanted to be done. I was tired and so were my legs. But I had to keep in mind that I really wanted to do this ride with the 4 of us and do a distance and elevation I for sure haven't done before. So I shifted my thinking from, "When are we gonna be done.." to "Earn the Yeti glass!!!" (Ryan got a Yeti pint glass that we keep in his freezer, and only take it out for a cold beer after a seriously good effort on a ride- can be a new PR, a great race outcome, the first time dominating a decent after multiple tries, etc.) So anyway Beth and I kind of buddied-up behind Ryan and James at that point; I think we were both spent!! Well, I totally was but Beth has a way of making you think she's past being tired and can't do another climb when all of a sudden she just kills it. It's just as entertaining as it is amazing. So it was a lot of fun riding with her and just watching James and Ryan heckle each other all the way back... as usual! My legs could probably tell but I didn't realize that we ended up doing 22 miles and 3500 feet of climbing- Definitely a new high for me!! So thanks to James for thinking up this ride and to Ryan for convincing me I could do it (as usual), because I got the Yeti glass! :) Can't wait to do it again soon.

On tap for this week: really focusing on getting my knee healthy again, sticking with the same training plans from previous weeks but increasing the distances of all workouts, then heading out to Arizona to see my sister and brother-in-law. Can't wait for that- Ryan and I will be heading out Friday night but my sister Liz and her boyfriend Mike will already be there too. So it should be a fun-filled weekend with the 6 of us together... we'll be checking out the infamous salt river there. It's open every summer and people basically just cruise in their inner tubes, eat and drink beers while they float down the river for 10 miles. can't wait for that... found this pic of it just now:
haha don't think that girl's wearing any bottoms... jeez this might be crazy.