A week in the life of 2-person RAAM training

This was a particularly fun, and yet challenging week, so I thought I would share :-)

Monday: 5 am alarm, and off to train with Kate, my strength trainer. She works me HARD and I leave exhausted.

Work all day teaching some kiddos.
Head from work to a dinner with the wonderful founders of Moxie Cycling, our newest team sponsor!

Deb and Brooke are phenomenal women who are chasing a dream and throwing themselves into it with all of their heart....sound familiar? They are fantastic, and I can't wait to share more about them with you! It was an inspiring and uplifiting dinner!

Tuesday: AM I do an hour on my bike trainer. There is nothing I have to do in particular, which is nice. Usually, I watch some serious project runway!

On my way to work, I dropped in to get my allergy shots. Yuck.

Worked for a while...with the kiddos

Then, I had an appointment with Dr. Josh Glass to take care of my back and shoulders. He is a miricle worker.

Then, I walked upstairs to see Eddie O'dea who is the bike fitter of 55nine. He has been working with me on my bike fits for a while now. I want them to be the perfect combination of aero and comfortable for RAAM! It is actually amazing--I tell him what is irritating me about my bike, he uses a laser and some tools and TA-DA! It's fixed and I feel better. If you have ANY need to tweak your bike fit (or get a first bike fit), he is very talented.

 Then, I went home and hopped on my bike (inside). I had 2.5 hours of riding however I wanted, so I mix it up to keep it interesting. The last 1.5 hours were a prety tough workout (4 hours total). By the time I was finally done, I didn't want to make dinner, so George made me a green smoothie. He's a sweetie!

Wednesday morning, I headed over to Energy Lab to ride with Dani. It's nice to take quick break and train somewhere different (then my own living room!). We also like to have one weekday where we touch base. Team RAAM means you have to be communicating many times a day to solve problems and plan for the race, so we like to be sure of at least one face-to--face weekday. 

 Wednesday afternoon, I had a faculty meeting at work. Then, I had time to squeeze in a 20 minute run. Then Dani and I headed over to Dr. Stan Beecham's house. He is the sports pyscologist that I worked with before. We sat down and talked about the race, our training, our mental strategies, and most importantly, our relationship with each other! It was an invaluable evening, and we look forward to spending time working with him again before the race!

 Thursday morning is just like Tuesday. I get up and spend an hour on my bike trainer.



Head to work!

Come back home and get on the trainer. This time, I watched Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief (because I am really about 12 years old), and it was awesome. Then, George joined me for the last 1.5 hours (total of 4 hours of riding just like tuesday), where we watched some summer olympics, which was great. It was a HARD workout, and I was SPENT.

Friday morning I went to see Kate the strength trainer again, and I was pretty tired going into this workout. We did a ton of core work, and my belly still hurts three days later!

That evening, Dani, George, Jason, Anne, and I all had dinner to work on the gear list and the race strategy. It was a great evening, and we got a ton done! Jason has prepared an incredible gear list, and we are working hard to gather everything on it!

Saturday George and I drove up to Canton and rode our super hilly ride that goes over Burnt Mountain. We were on the bikes for 5 hours, and it was a great (yet tough) ride!

Then, we spent the afternoon enjoying being with my family in Canton at their new home (my parents are moving closer to me, and I can't WAIT!).  Then we drove up to their house in Dalton.

Sunday I got up and headed out on my bike. The weather was initially beautiful. Then the wind started to seriously pick up. It got rough out there, but I spent another 5 hours on the bike and got up Fort Mountain (and ate a snickers at the top--it's my thing). It was really peaceful, and there were very few cars, which was great. The ride home from the mountain felt like it would never ever end. Eventually I got the magical tailwind and made it back.

Spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing at my parents, and then we drove back to Atlanta. We went to the grocery store to get stocked up for the week. We ended the week by watching the re-premier of the Walking Dead. I love a few good zombies.