"Grind it out"

Well, I am in utter bliss right now--I am in love with Spinervals, very good stuff...

Had another stab at 5.0 - Mental Toughness (90 mins). Seriously examined the gears on the back beforehand, and am about 99% sure it's 12-27. I'm a bit heavy-handed with that right-hand shifter, I was sometimes in too easy a gear because I'd jumped through a couple without realizing, must take it less ham-fistedly I think! But I get the idea...

(Coach Troy is most fetching--he is so reassuring and unglamorous, I like it!)

I am not able to work as hard as those people in the video, but I think I did a respectable job, I will get better once I do it for longer. It was dawning on me gradually as I was riding along that really I must spend as much time as possible on the bike in these coming months. I'm kind of OK on the run and swim, if tomorrow morning someone told me "you have to swim 1.2 miles and then run a half-marathon right now" I would be full of enthusiasm, there sort of would be nothing I like more, I would be confident that I could do it very comfortably (except for the being-kicked-in-the-head part, I am not really used to that, but there is not really a very good way for me to practice except trust that having two younger brothers who were both considerably larger than me from the time we were about five was probably good preparation!).

Not true about the bike--must do everything I can to ensure I enjoy that race to the maximum. In other words, do lots of fitness workouts with Spinervals, because the places I will be able to ride outside are full of other cyclists and pedestrians and wayward dogs and small children and it will be not always the case that I can get a good workout outside. No skimping on bike-riding, even if it means sometimes skipping something else that I love (namely SWIMMING).

I did not do a short run afterwards, because it is after ten at night and did not seem sensible. Will run six in the afternoon tomorrow (in fact will use it to run over to the New York Road Runners on E. 89th St.--hmmmm, as always I regret the east-side location, very inconvenient for me by public transportation--and pick up my number for Sunday's Bronx half) and then swim for an hour at six...

Hmmm, really the best thing is that this was just a super-enjoyable workout--but the other best thing is that as I crouched down next to the gears beforehand to try to work out what was going on there, I found my glasses!

They were sitting on the floor next to the back wheel, I now vaguely remember digging them out on Saturday as I tried to see if the tiny markings on the gears were useful numbers (they were not, and in any case I am shortsighted, I do not need glasses for close-up things). I was in a real state about having lost them, and spent an hour I did not have on Sunday chasing around looking for them before giving up in despair because I had to go catch a train.

(I do have another pair with the same prescription, chosen by me fairly recently and thus presumably entirely tolerable, only I do not feel they are as appropriate for work purposes--they were chosen on the basis of safety and sport wear as they have plastic frames and lenses.)

This is very good--a bonus!

Now I am going to go and (as Coach Troy suggests) "take in some calories"...