TGIF....

It’s Friday, which means I have almost survived an entire week at the new job. So far, it’s not bad, although it is stressing me out. Early in the week my boss asked me to do some AutoCAD work, making changes to our trans-ship facility out in California (B44). Well somehow, from there, other people got wind of the fact that I was on the B44 project, so my responsibilities have somehow spiraled out of control to not just making drawing changes but also developing the solutions and managing the changes. All of this happened while my boss was out in Canada I might add. Oh and I should probably also add that this currently is the most visible project in the company, and the owners are constantly checking in on it. So for the past few days, I keep getting pulled into the President of Operation’s office where he explains the changes he would like to see. Unfortunately these are very different ideas from what my boss explained to me before he disappeared out of the country. So I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on. My boss seems to be back in the office today before he heads out of town again next week, but I can’t seem to track him down to sit down with him and get some direction. Oh well, all in a day’s work I guess.

Last night was interval night, and I think I learned a few things. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. I have to leave work earlier, or find a new route. I got stuck in traffic for an hour making me miss the main roll-out, meaning I missed the “warm-up” interval and got thrown in on a double.

2. Dan, the service guy at the shop is wonderful. He got my bike all fixed up with a new chain and got the rest of the drive train nice and clean even though he had plenty of other jobs he should have worked on. Thanks Dan, the bike felt so much better!

3. I need to learn to do my own interval work-out instead of trying to do what the boys do. Last night, they were all trying to show off, which meant we did double after double after double, etc… I finally reached the point where doing doubles wasn’t really doing me a lot of good because I didn’t have time to recover in between. Luckily John dropped back to ride with me, explaining that if you aren’t recovering between the intervals then you aren’t getting the full benefit. He also reminded me that the point isn’t to keep up, it’s to make it hurt. So from now on I will focus on pushing it as hard as I can during the interval (and probably doing more singles until my fitness improves) and also focusing on getting my heart rate back down during the recovery. And if that means I don’t ride with the guys at all, then so be it.

4. Forget buying a new car, mine is still running. Instead I will be saving up for a PowerTap and some coaching services. I think my training will be much more effective if someone can lay out a plan for me, and I can put specific number goals for each ride. Telling me to do hard intervals is one thing, but telling me to do 10 minute intervals at 200W is something that I can figure out much better. Maybe it’s the engineer in me….