Bloody Fingers and Wahoo Serious

The weekend did not begin like I had hoped, in fact, it was chaos. I had to work Saturday morning and in the afternoon do a bunch of stuff around the house (we are STILL not fully unpacked yet!) and by the time came to ride a little, I just could not get my head into it. Y'all ever have days like that? So in passing, I picked up my guitar, flicked on my amp and just started doodling. I played chords, ran through some scales three or four dozen times and started just doing something, I dunno what, just playing riffs and making noise - some of which sounded pretty good. I played and played and eventually picked out some music - For Those About To Rock by AC/DC, and gave that a stab. I have found that no matter how simple something looks on paper or sounds, it doesn't necessarily mean it will be easy to play.
I sat there and played until my fingers were numb and one of 'em was bleeding. How cool is that? Trust me, I will be on the cover of Rolling Stone, just give me 10 or 20 more years to practice.

Sunday my head was clear enough that I got on the bike for some old fashioned speedwork. I have found that I don't do real well with highly structured workouts so I have come up with a variation on that and my workouts are more intuitive. I begin the day with and idea of how much I need to suffer and then I fill that time with stuff like sprints to road signs or timed intervals with a twist (for the twisted). Like yesterday there's one road called Buttermilk Rd. Buttermilk Rd is a stairstep climb from beginning to end and it's almost 2 miles long. The interval was the entire road, the twist was I could not let my speed drop below 12 mph. If it did, I had to loop back around and do it again no matter what speed plus I had to go home via Wahoo Valley Rd (Wahoo Valley has a really steep climb out of it and it hurts). If I was successful, I got to go home via the much nicer Dunlap Rd. Sounds simple but you come out and ride it and you'll see that it's not as easy as it sounds.
I made it though it got pretty close on one of the steeper steps and after a few more hilltop sprints and short intervals, I cruised the last 45 minutes on home. Cross is coming and it really hurts in a much different way than the endurance stuff. I hope I will be ready.