Sunday, Windy Sunday (Loop #4)

The logo from the Trainer's gym (called the Point)

Joy here...On Thursday I met up with The Trainer for my strength training session--The Man was sick, so I was on my own--and she had me do something called "drop sets."  Basically what you do in a "drop set" is that you start off with the heaviest weight and do as many reps as you can before "failure" (literally when your arms can no longer lift the weight), and then without any rest in between, you get a lower weight and have to lift that as many times as you can, and when you fail with that (usually sooner than you might think), you get to lift the lightest weight until you fail with that...but, trust me, by that final set, the "light" weight doesn't feel very light at all!  So for an hour she ran me through a whole host of different exercises, getting me to failure again and again.  To quote The Trainer as she looked down at my prone form on her mats as I sweated from every pore and heaved my chest up and down with the effort of breathing:  "At The Point, failure is success!"

Well, I guess I had a whole lot of success, enough success that for both Friday and Saturday, I was wiped right out.  You should have seen me at the grocery store trying to lift up my bag of groceries...my arm was shaking like some kind of drug addict in withdrawal.

Look at that wind!

After those two days to recover from all that success I had, when Sunday rolled around, I was going to get out there on my bike to do my 65km bike ride loop of the park come hell or high water.

Well, we had neither hell nor high water, but we had apocalyptic type winds.  Wind makes many different sounds:  there's the sound of wind like crashing waves on the beach; wind that sounds like the light rustling of leaves; wind that sounds like a banshee howl; wind that sounds like falling rain or thunder; wind that sounds like a lover's soft breath on your ear; wind that sounds like a whispered word that you just can't understand; wind that sounds like rolling logs; wind that sounds like flapping and fluttering sheets on a laundry line; and let me tell you, we had every single sound of wind and then some roaring through our ears this morning.

The spring sun high in the sky above the winds.

And no matter what we did, that wind seemed to be either blowing right in our faces, slowing us down with each and every pedal stroke, or coming at us from the side, threatening to blow us right off the road.  Never did we get a tailwind pushing us along at speeds that made our hearts burst with excitement.  No, no, no matter what direction we seemed to be facing, we were fighting that wind.

As we topped the first hill and started the descent, I sat up carefully and held onto my handlebars to keep control in the howling winds, and lo and behold...The Professor just whizzed right past me.  She was tucked down in her aero position, not afraid of anything.  When I caught up to her I told her that she was brave, and Cili Padi and the Spinning Instructor echoed my sentiments.  "Well," said The Professor, "I just tuck down and I'm like a bullet just cutting through that wind."  Bullet she was!

Cili Padi just topping the steep part of the hill.

So on the next descent, I took a page out of her book and tucked myself down, using The Professor's patented Bullet Move, and she was right!  I just flew down that hill, cutting through the wind, hearing nothing but a roar in my ears.  It was like an auditorium full to capacity all on their feet and roaring their approval...those wind gods roared their approval as we fought our way through all that they threw our way today.  The sky was blue; the air was cold; and the wind swirled, and we were out their riding our little hearts out.

And my new bike purchase, my amazing new Di2 Pinarello, (which is still unnamed...I'm taking suggestions) didn't let me down.  My legs pumped as hard as they could against the wind, and that bike answered with speed.  Good thing, too, because there's another new bike in our little Team Sunday peloton.  Cili Padi bought herself an amazing new LOOK, also with Di2.  Today's windy ride was her first ride on the new bike, and she confirmed at the end that she's fallen in love.  With her bike that is.

Cili Padi's new bike on the left and mine on the right enjoy the view
from Champlain Lookout.

Even with drop sets lingering in my arms and howling winds battering us around the roads, I was able to ride out there amongst my friends and tackle our loop...but boy am I looking forward to the silence in the absence of wind as I seat myself down and relax for the rest of the afternoon.

Over and out,
Joy