Rather nice

On the bike this morning, out riding with the good folks from Front Runner. What an absolutely lovely morning for cycling. Usually on a morning this nice I would take a picture, but this morning I neglected to do so, so you will have to make do with my word picture instead, so here you go:

T'was a morning with a slight chill to the air, but not unpleasantly so, just on the cusp of pleasant. There was a gentle sunrise around 5:30 caressingly warming the clear blue skies, barely a cloud to be seen. The trees hung still, occasionally stirred by the lightest of breezes. The birds sung, the bunnies hoped and all was right in the world.

Phew, okay I think that about sums it up. In short it was pretty magic.

Around the Front Runner athletes circles I am known as the guy who always gets rained on. If it is going to rain on a training session, it is nearly always on one of my bike sessions. For a time they were considering selling me as a drought solution. I am not kidding, it was getting beyond a joke for a bit there. After all that it was rather nice to have a lovely morning which was custom made for pure cycling awesomeness. Spring in all its glory. A nice break after the horror weather over the weekend and the next bit of meteorological misery that is heading our way later in the week. A brief glimmer of perfection if you will.

For the nine hardy Front Runners who made it out of bed for the session I think they had a pretty okay ride. The perfect weather was tempered by a tough session, but that is what people were turning up for and so hopefully it made for a good morning out. For this morning we had 6 x 6 minute efforts at 100% FTP, so in other words a classic FTP session. With this Tuesday session we are gradually building the volume of work we are doing up to about 40 minutes of work at threshold, so the session today was a good step along that road. Next week we move a bit closer to 40 minutes with slightly longer efforts and the week after we extend those efforts again. In this way we are slowly building the capacity of our athletes in preparation for the local racing season which kinds of kicks off this weekend, but starts for earnest in December.

Now that Kona is finished and done with, the attention of nearly every triathlete in town has turned to Busso in December, just under 7 weeks away. Most are well into their race preparation and those that aren't are madly cramming. This is always a nice time of year to be a triathlete around here as during every session you see fellow triathletes out training. It helps build a good buzz and atmosphere around town and a real sense of community. For the Front Runner athletes we have training for Busso we are trying to do our bit in helping them along this journey and be part of the community. This morning's session was another key step along that path.