Chasing Boys (And Other People Who Are Faster Than Me)

Everyone wants to get faster, right? Well I certainly do. Countless (fast!) people have said that the best way to get faster is to ride/run with someone who's faster than you. In trying to keep up with them, you'll get stronger. The issue has been that on the weekends when we work out in groups, we're also doing zone 2 training, so it's really easy to just say "let's keep it easy, it's a zone 2 ride today, people!" And then you end the ride, look at your Garmin, and see that your average heart rate was in zone 1. Blah.

Last year, Shelly and I figured out (with Dawn's help) that zone 2 is big. A zone 2 ride or run can happen in the bottom, middle, or top of zone 2. If you're riding or running significantly faster at the top of the zone than at the bottom, you're getting your zone 2 training in, and getting faster. Right? I'm hoping that if I'm wrong here, Coachie is going to read this and step in and correct me. But I watched it work for Shelly last year as she ran to the top of zone 2 and away from our little group on every training run. And now I want it to work for me! Our first build for Ironman Texas started this week, and I made a plan to GO FASTER this weekend.

Luckily, Brian was in on this plan and he loves to help people, so he joyfully agreed to be my rabbit and let me chase him on the bike this weekend. Alphanso decided to join us on Saturday's ride, too, so I had not one, but TWO boys to chase! The group arrived at Soler's to find wet roads (no actual rain) and 70 degree temps, and we headed out to Castroville for a 60 mile ride. The promise of a Haby's donut in the middle of the ride made us all smile. As did the GoPro camera mounted on the front of Alphanso's bike, although I'm sure it never captured any faces, just butts. We'll see.

We rode out easy and then when we got to the gas station at Culebra, we put the gas ON. Shelly jumped on the train too and we rode to Castroville faster than I've ever done before. At the 30 mile turnaround, we had a 19.3 mph average, which is fabulous for me. And Alphanso got his first Haby's donut.

The country roads were full of mud from farm trucks driving off the surrounding dirt roads and shaking debris onto the shoulder of FM 471. Brian actually had to stop to scrape the mud out from between his frame and rear wheel. It was ridiculous. Photographic evidence (Brian and Orissa's feet) below (those are not tan lines):

I chased Brian back towards town and even though we had one mishap (Shelly hurt her knee and had to be picked up by Orissa, who had finished her ride with Aixa earlier and luckily was able to come and get Shelly), I ended up having one of my fastest rides ever (in zone 2!). A big "thank you!!!!" to Brian and Alphanso for the motivation. Then we all went home and spent hours cleaning our bikes. Here's the before picture of my poor mistreated Slicey. See the caked on mud - argh!

I planned to apply the same reasoning to today's 12 mile run and informed Linda that I'd be trying to stay with her. She promised to bring her A game. And she did!

Well, actually, I really had to pee (sorry, maybe too much info) so we ran really fast to the nearest gas station (2 miles away). When we got there, Linda said "great pace! Let's try and keep it up for the rest of the run! And also, my watch just ran out of charge, so we'll have to use yours." Now I felt responsible for keeping up the pace and keeping up with Linda so that I could report her times back to her at the end of the run. So that's what I did. It was a GREAT run, although cold and we both suffered chafing from wearing arm warmers with our sleeveless tanks (yes, that's what we get for this fashion no-no, I know).

Here's the group, post run. At 40 degrees, it really was ridiculously cold and windy out there today. But what a great weekend for training!