I Gotta Do Things My Own Way. Yeah...My Own Way.

Lord knows I am crazy in love with John. He is weird enough, whip smart, funny as hell, a screaming pain in the ass (which, in my world, is a good thing). He challenges me in every way possible, but most importantly, I can deal with his shit and so far, he can deal with mine. As far as I'm concerned, being able to put up with someone else's shit is one of the biggest parts of staying together. What can I say? I'm a romantic that way.

Soooo, John and I also differ on many things. Usually we mesh pretty well. John is much more fastidious about things and I am kind of....Uh, messy and half-assed about a lot of things. For instance, he will point out two buildings, obviously built similarly and right next to each other, but one is of different dimensions and they are asymmetrical. He will comment that it drives him crazy and I will reply, "Oh, there are two buildings right there? I didn't even notice them..." I will just go ahead and assume that my reply drives him even more nuts. Sorry.

I think John would like it if I let him coach me. He is amazing at researching all different angles of training and racing and the best way to train as an older athlete and athletes that don't have tons of time and he watches videos for skills training...And all kinds of great things to know. Of course, I just fly by the seat of my pants and if I try to do crap that I haven't studied or practiced at all, then sometimes I am quite literally flying by the seat of my chamois. The only thing is, that John can get a little TOO invested in my results and my training and I want to do too many other things in my life in addition to bike racing, so my focus is more than a little too wide. Like John always says, the less things you try to do, the better you will be at one thing, and it matters less to me to be really good at one thing. Also, I am not always comfortable doing things in a prescribed way...Even if doing those things my way isn't the best or fastest. Basically, I just want to be able to live with John as long as possible, and I'm not sure how long that would end up being if I let him coach me and I drove him bonkers by doing things in my own special Lucille Ball way.

I did give him the go ahead to write me up a work-out on my trainer for racing CX. I appreciate his knowledge, even if it can be painful sometimes. If you check it out in the photo above, you can see that he isn't one much for going easy on a person...

The view from my trainer.

I have had the "pleasure" of doing this work-out twice now. I didn't even have to wait until 48 minutes to puke, the first time I did it. I came close long before that. I made it to the last part of doing half of the tabatas, before I had to get off my bike and lie down on top of my fleece jacket on the floor. The second time, I made it through three minutes of the tabatas, before I had to stop and soft pedal long enough for my legs to stop shaking. Here's to hoping that before these work-outs kill me, they help me get stronger and faster for my races....