On one of the message boards I frequent, I got some advice to take GU energy gel before my snake time trial at the beginning of the month. I did. Despite being what I thought was out of shape, I sort of kicked butt and felt great, during the race and also afterwards. I then redid the snake 2 weeks after that. I wrote up about it, and damn I bombed. I was slower, didn’t feel as good and totally bonked on that ride. Also recently I started running 5K’s once a week. The only difference between last week and this week was that I took a GU before this week’s monday run. I knocked 3 minutes off my time! Woah! Last week, I remember about 3/4 of the way through I was struggling. Had to focus on deep breaths, slow up on the uphills etc. Today? The further I went, the better I felt. It was weird.

I don’t know exactly what type of junk is in this little magical package, but its gotta be something that isn’t on the label. Maybe its all mental, maybe its all something else, but I totally feel like superman after taking one of these things.

We’ll see how they work again this weekend. Got time trial #2 at the snake. First official TT was 3hrs 1 minute. I’m going for a real goal of 2:45 and a stretch of 2:30. Not sure if I’ll be capable of doing that, but I’m gonna GU up every 45 minutes like the box says, so with my month of “training” and a ton of energy crack, we’ll see what happens.

It’s been a fun and relaxing couple of weeks. Its been kind of nice. Not to say that work and my normal weekday has not been super hectic, but just been a bit more relaxing and fun during my time off and weekends, including a great weekend that is finishing up.

I’m still riding the heck out of bikes. Rode the Snake Creek Gap again, and will be heading back for Time Trial #2 in a couple of weekends. Was actually harder the 2nd time around. I went with a friend and we pushed harder for the 1st half. I also didn’t take any Gu gel with me. Took a wrong turn about 75% of the way in and added an extra mile. That totally took all my energy and desire away and I ended up “bonking” finishing 20 minutes over what I did 3 weeks ago. Just hit a wall with 2 miles to go. Took a couple of falls too and scraped up my rear derailleur pretty good. Almost seems like these $$$$ mtb parts are almost expandable when one is going on rock gardens every 2 weeks. I’ll make sure to have plenty of that super gel and more desire and training when I visit again in 2 weeks.

I’ve also re-started working on the house again. Got inspired to worry about fixing what still needs work rather then looking at things such as hardwood floor upgrades. Got some new art for the walls and got some great photos of mine framed. Sure wakes up the downstairs. I’ll be working on finishing the crown molding this week, and then tackle that damn bathroom eventually.

Lastly, started work on the race car too. Kind of scared me when I realized just how much crap there is to be done in the off-season. I did decide to make this year a bit light and only hit the big and important events. Going to Road Atlanta twice, the SARRC/MARRS at VIR, one of the Daytona doubles (or Barber race) and then the ARRC. Going to skip the ITFest as thats just too much of a haul and $$ expenditure at this point.

On second though, scratch that whole “more relaxed on my time off” thing off the list. Going to be a crazy busy and fun spring!

Nothing really that big, but I ran pretty much my first 5k distance today. Jogged for 3.1 miles around the neighborhood in right at 33 minutes. Nothing spectacular as far as speed, but then again, 6 months ago, no way I could have run that. I’m getting in shape! My goal is a 25 minute 5K, so now I have a nice path to follow and can track my progress.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/22177607