Training Log Archive: Carbons Offset

It has been a crazy month of good over-eating: a great catered ski week at Sol Lodge, then too much good pizza and fresh pasta for a week of sightseeing in Italy and another week of amazing buffet meals at the bike hotel. I'm a bit nervous to learn the result when I hop on the scale at home. It is starting to show, so it must be significant. I had already decided to not hold back when the food was especially good in Italy, and I'll hopefully burn it all off with all of the running that Carbon and I need to do for our upcoming trail races, but it would be nice to not be carrying some extra pounds for 80 km in 3 weeks.
Oh well.

C • On the bright side... 4

Last ride in Italy. It felt sad to hand the bike in. I get like this on the last day of riding on our Moab trips too. Yes, I'm a big suck for riding trips. Actually, I get a little like this at the end of ski trips too. Hmmm.

Another good day. More nice climbs, including a nice hard last climb with 2.5 km of 16 percent grade. Lots of fun riding with Carbon's dad and his buddies. They were looking sharp in new matching jerseys.

This trip has been really sweet. Ride for the first half of the day, then eat and hang out for the other half.

Another really pretty day. Temperature was perfect, blue skies, cafes and pastries :)
Some fun climbs, sometimes as steep as 15 percent, nothing too long, not like yesterday. Was up for a lighter day, but the pace was faster than I expected. And when Carbon is riding so strong and taunting your ego, there are no rest days. Oh well, life is great, no complaints, tonight we get to do an Italian cooking class.

Big day - fairly long, but especially lots of climbing. The "Road" and "Race" groups started together so that dialed up the pace of the road group. Had fun bridging the gap to the race group but after holding them for a while I decided that wasn't a wise pace for me, given the long day.
An incredibly scenic ride -exactly what I was hoping for when I wondered what the riding here would be like. Weather was great, climbing was great, everything about the day was great!

Was supposed to be a 100 km day with 1000 meters of climbing but the guide skipped the last climb and took us home early because it was cold after we got rained on, even though everyone in the group was okay with the wet and the cold. Oh well, tomorrow will be big.
A pretty fast pace for the first half with some good climbing and some challenging wind. Carbon's dad came on this fast ride and did great.

Good ride today. Some nice long climbs. I'm definitely not up on my road riding strategy, as a couple of lead guys would surge and break away. Even though I could hold the pace from a distance, I was working harder on my own. Tried to stay with the surges later on but still couldn't hold the front riders. Oh well, all good fun. Really got a kick out of sneaking through the narrow alleys in a little town en route to our cappuccino stop - the kind of narrow street you would take a photo of when walking, never mind riding through it as a group of 15.