So, Thursday I rode in the South of France

Seriously!

Well, kinda.

I did my Thursday night spin class again--these have been ROCKIN' as far as preparing me for New Orleans (which is 3 weeks from tomorrow, kids...yikes). I tell ya what, I never work that hard on my own. No way, Jose. Me in my basement for two hours means spinning and kinda zoning out and that's about it. No matter how hard I try, I just don't duplicate the ridiculous effort that I get on Thursday nights. My watts hit 500 this week! Something about having some friends to suffer with you in a room with great tunes seems to really help me focus.

So we've been having themes lately to mix it up. A few weeks ago was 80s hair night. A few buddies even came with wigs and sequined headbands! Then we did ladies night, and last night was the 6th stage of Paris-Nice complete with a map of the elevation and the "estimated times" we'd reach each climb. Andy, our fearless leader, did a great job of making us feel like we were in the peloton and racing the 182K stage. There were Cat 3 climbs thrown in, too. For this triathlete who has never ever ever done a cycling race before, it was pretty fun! Thanks to the Spin-Second Sole Multisport Team for putting on these great workouts! And, the free beer and good conversation afterwards was the icing on the cake. :)

This weekend, I've got a solid bunch of training sessions to get in. Today, when Bug naps, I'll do a 2 hour ride with a 20 minute runoff. Tomorrow, I'm going to run for 1:30 and then swim 3000 yards when he naps. Three weeks from tomorrow, I'm jumping in Lake Ponchartrain (or however you spell it...my apologies to the lake) for what will be my first open water swim of the season--in a race. Interesting. It is pretty cold today, so it looks like today's spin will be inside unless it warms up by 1 or so. Right now it's sunny and gorgeous but 20 degrees. I totally underestimated how cold it was when I went up to the kids' resale at an area school and braved the crowds to get Bug a sweet tunnel to crawl through for five bucks and an awesome Indians outfit for Opening Day for three bucks!

(Ahhhh, good deals. Me love you long time.)

Anyway, I've almost made it. Things are clicking. I'm really tired, but feeling like I'm getting pretty strong. Been putting in a lot of extra time at school and it paid off for my AP students. They just rocked their last test, and I think they're starting to see that taking this harder class, pushing themselves more than anyone else who's taking the easier US History, and generally suffering more has made them stronger and ready to take on the big test in 32 school days.

So, I'm just going to get through this one workout at a time, one session at a time...and pretty soon it will be time to pack up my bike and get this party started.

Gotta go crawl through a tunnel in my basement now! ;)