nailed.

Around these parts there were a gazillion races this weekend. I love racing and I love to race in June. Typically I will bang out 3-4 triathlons this month, but I did not race, which elicited several emails, 2 phone calls and 2 people asking me in person..... are you okay? what's wrong? are you racing locally this year?

Absolutely I am! For the first time in my life I am holding off until July to race, as you know I am just in the second month of my training with my new coach (whom is AWESOME!!!!!!) my A race is in November, which is when everyone else will be hibernating. We decided to hold onto June as a preparation month, and we will continue to build straight on through to November.

My race schedule is right here. And my first local race is coming soon, I can not wait. Trust me, I am not one of those people who is afraid to publish a race schedule!

So while y'all were out racing, I was home training.

I know, professional photography at it's best! Actually this was this morning. When the thermometer reached eighty, I sat inside because I had big gear intervals to nail. And nail them I did.

The main set is what's the fun part: 3 X 10 minutes at 225 watts, cadence of 55-60, with 4 minutes of recovery. During the 10 minutes I have to hold a certain wattage which we determine through a percentage of my 20 min power. Right now that's about 250. One of my goals is to raise it to 285 by Clearwater.

To get to that goal of 285 I have benchmarks to meet and those are met in workouts such as this. My goal wattage for this particular sat was 225. I can go higher but I have to maintain that wattage. So for example if I make all 3 at 225, then next week I move up to 230. If I make 230 the following week 235. If I don't make it, I stay where I am at.

I felt awesome, I will say that for sure. On the trainer I have complete control of the set. I can find a marriage between heart rate, cadence and wattage. On the roads I don't have that kind of control. To see marked improvement I need to do these in an environment that I can replicate.

This one I can replicate.

I hit them all. I exceeded my goal of 225..... I hit them all in 230. The last one at 231 to be exact. I stayed exactly where I should stay and in my mind I felt in the zone, on course, in the present moment, whatever you'd like to term it. I was on today. I have been off so much in my life, I know what ON feels like and I know it quickly.

I couldn't help but smile and feel a rush of excitement as the download began. I knew the results, I was watching them for cryin' out loud. But the confirmation. Last week I held these at 220, and this week I got stronger and more importantly I got better at handling the hard.

Another notch in the belt, another rung on the ladder, another bail of hay in the barn. I am seeing progress. I am thrilled to death to see how well my QT2 Teammates did at Mooseman. The top ten men and women were tons of them. The formula, the plan... it works.

And I am in the sacrifice.

It's going to be a good season. come on JULY!