Hotter than a hoo-doo.

Dear Diary,

It was insanely hot and dry out yesterday which means two things:

1. We're a day or so away from the annual Bosque fire where kids playing with fireworks threatened multi-million dollar homes, and,
   


2. My training plan includes a ride "with hills".

I'm pretty sure that the Jimmy looked at the results of some of my latest races and thought to himself, Holy Cow, this girl needs to learn to climb. My average pace at the Grady Williams 100% hills triathlon was about, oh, 2 mph. Or something like that.

Sweet Baboo knows the area pretty well so he picked a route that would get my 30 miles. He chose a route that included - ulp - Northern Boulevard. Northern runs up through Rio Rancho climbing almost the entire way. It made me nauseated just to drive it in a car. More than once, I've thought about climbing northern, and felt the bile of anxiety rise in my throat.

Actually, it this turned out to be a GREAT route. Not too much traffic, and pretty nice roads. SB was pretty relieved.

I think Baboo worries that some day I'm going to snap and blame him for every bad experience and hire a divorce lawyer, citing "too many hills" or something like that.

Not that I haven't, somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind, grumbled very ugly thoughts while chasing his rear wheel up Rio Bravo...but the ugly thoughts always dissipate after I've finished the ride.

And I did it! Now, I'm not saying I did it fast. After all, according to my cyclometer, it was 99 degrees near the finish (it was about 102 F at noon here). But I did it without pulling over and walking. In fact, the only time I pulled over was to switch out my bottles.

I took 3 bottles which each had 2 scoops of HEED along with two scoops of Carbo Pro, for a total of 300 calories each. I only finished two bottles, though. If I try to do this again I'll probably take along a hydration pack with ice and Nuun for extra fluids. I'm not much of a sweater, but geez, I mean, it was 100 degrees F out.

And I Climbed. HILLS.

In 100 degree heat.

Which means I am the toughest girl in the neighborhood.

Wanna arm wrestle?

I also did it in a skin suit, with the nose of my bike tipped down just a tad. I was comfortable enough, but I need to make some adjustments. About a month ago the aerobars on my training bike started swinging around wildly and the spacers fell out. It made for a most unsatisfying ride. When things were tightened back down, I think all my adjustments - aerobars, etc., got out of wack.

So, I figure if I ramp up the length of my rides I should be in good shape for an Ironman in Kentucky in August. Especially since the whole area is in the middle of a severe drought.

This morning we're going over a small local airport to do "time trials" and I have no idea what that means.