I haven't been to work since December 22nd and sadly I have to go back tomorrow. During the time off I caught up on a bunch of things, but mostly I rode my bike.

I think that my training plan is really working because I went on two hard rides this week and I did well on both of them. The first was a manic hill climbing ride with a friend who introduced me to this sport. When I am about to have a heart attack while climbing a hill, he picks on my climbing technique. It's easy to get sloppy when you are tired. Then I worked on my technique on Saturday with a five hour hill climbing ride. I thought I would have been tired after that ride, but I was full of energy for the rest of the day and did not need a nap. My team (both men and women) partied so hardy last night (not really; we're teetotalers) and then rode together as a group today. And then we pigged out at IHOP afterwards. And probably because of that, again I did not need my usual post-ride nap. The ride was an insane three hours which involved trying to stay with a group of Cat 3 males. I did well and stayed with them for much of the ride, and when I was dropped, the trusty "reeler-in" guy was there to pull the laggards back up to the rest of the group. If our training camp in few weeks is anything like that ride, I am going to pass out after a few hours of riding. Anyhow, I am not supposed to be riding this hard at this point in my training cycle. My rides should be focusing on strength building by slowly climbing hills in a big gear. But it is nice to occasionally get a progress check like today's ride to see how I am doing.