My second outdoor ride this year was the 10 mile time trial on Saturday at Oak Mtn, in which I did manage to drag myself out there despite the cold temperatures and early morning start time, mostly due to the presence of a person who is particularly skilled at spoiling me; I offer no objections to this.

Unfortunately, though, only the HARD CORE people showed up, so the field was very competitive. I think I sucked. I was the second woman to finish out of three, so I suppose you could say that I was in the top three. Hah.

My weakness in hill climbing is hill climbing. I love to climb on my bike, and I have the advantage of diminutive physique, but I think that I could be faster at this type of cycling if I worked harder at it. I seem to have better results against competitors on hilly courses as opposed to flat or rolling, but my average speed on a hilly course usually turns out to be a discouraging number.

This coming Saturday is a flat course TT, so I will see how that goes in comparison to last Saturday's TT.

Then on Sunday there's a training race, so I prepare myself to be shamed against those who weren't big whiny babies in the cold winter weather and thus did not stop riding. I have to note that on Saturday, I could not feel my feet. I find that to be very unpleasant. In the winter, I'd much prefer climbing up hills the entire time to avoid the wind chill that accompanies 20 mph. Hopefully this issue will resolve itself very soon as spring arrives.

In running and other news of total self-absorption, my kneecaps hurt when I run. Yesterday I had a very pleasant 7 mile run at around 8:15 pace; thinking all the while about how I should start doing speedwork to get my pace down to 7:30.