Building confidence

Today was a day of training to build my confidence before Sunday's triathlon - on the weekend, Ed and I did a ride where on 2 hills I really tried to push it hard, and ended up crashing (figuratively) and burning for the most part :( . I guess I'm not cut out to emulate Jan Ullrich - need to spin more like Lance (for any non-cycling fans, Ullrich is known for pedalling at a lower cadence in a harder gear which requires more strength - Armstrong more for a higher cadence ie. spinning).

So today, I went back up those 2 hills again trying more of a spinning approach, and it went much better :) . And I broke my downhill speed record as well (55.2 km/h down to the zoo) - I could only ever hit mid-40's on my MTB and it took me a while to get the confidence on the road bike to let it go downhill that much faster ...

I also drove the bike course for Sunday again, after one of Ed's friends (with a lot of triathlon connections) was telling us how everyone thinks it's a really hard course. I thought when we drove it before that the uphill sections were long (all relatively speaking of course, not talking Tour de France here or even Icefields Parkway) but not super-steep ... so I was relieved to find again today that my recollection was correct. And the first half going out (and last half coming back) are pretty much flat, so I think it will be fine.

I don't like 25 m pools though (swam at the Leduc pool today too), I lose count of my laps too easily as I'm used to a 50 m pool ...