Well, maybe not.

The Spring Death Valley Ultra Century is a little under 5 weeks away, and due to my averaging 60 hours of work a week at the moment I'm only getting in one training ride a week - the longest having been 60 miles.

I'm not giving up on the race just yet, but it's looking less likely that I'm going.

I'm scheduled to do the Solvang Century a week after Death Valley, so I may just take the DNS on the latter and focus on the century, which I know I can do.

Also, my car is psychic.

I've been working a lot and as such actually have some money in the bank. So of course, when I took the car to the mechanic to get the brakes done, I was informed that the suspension is shot (Los Angeles has some of the worst roads in the country - you really need a truck here and I have a cheap sedan).

Suspension repair? $400.
Brakes? $200, if  they can resurface the rotors. If not, more.

Guess I know where that extra money's going.

Failure and winds

On Groupon, I got a month long membership to one of the local yoga studios, so I've been going to a lot of different classes, the idea being to find one I like so when I have to start paying per class, I'll know which ones.

The one I tried today was WAY too hard for me. The instructor was very nice about my bailing 30 minutes into a 90 minute class, but I hate, hate, hate having to quit.

So to get the taste of failure out of my mouth, so to speak, I rode up PCH, the idea being to do 50 miles today.

Which I did, but it was super duper windy - a few times I was almost blown into the traffic lanes.


I'm still holding out hope that I'll be able to do the ultra century, so I'm doing hill repeats tomorrow, then a yoga class with an instructor that I like and has a class that's not too hard for me.

I'll then go swim as I'll miss Thursday's masters' swim due to work.

So, I bit off more than I could chew.

A few months ago, I got all fired up and registered for the Spring Death Valley Ultra Century. I figured a mere century wasn't all that much of a challenge, so why not go big?

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

It takes place in early March, which at this point, is a mere six weeks away.

Except that between flying back east for the holidays to overeat and then getting bronchitis, I haven't trained.

Today, I rode 50 miles and my ass is, as they say, grass.

I have no idea how I'm going to get from 50 miles (at an average speed of 12 mph, BTW), to 150 miles in SIX WEEKS.

I think I might be really, really fucked.

I'm trying to keep a sense of perspective in that they won't charge me more if I don't finish, and it'll be a lovely ride no matter how far I get, but my ultra-competitive inner jock is having none of it, no Sir.

I have to complete the ride in 13 hours to officially finish, which at my current fitness level, I'm not sure I can do.

My main problem is my hamstrings tightening up and saddle sores due to the seat rubbing. I try to stretch in the saddle (raising up off the seat, leaning on the handlebars and doing a sort of cat cow). I'm sure the saddle sores will resolve themselves with a bit more callus, but if I can't get a handle on this hamstring crap, I'm going to be hamburger after, well, 50 miles.

We'll see.

Six weeks to go.