Ride of the HHH Valkyries

Taking full advantage of this rare mid-summer time off (I was supposed to be in France), here is the first of several short video teasers from the June Mid-West tour. The Horribly Hilly Hundreds are staggeringly popular rides in SW Wisconsin. They are staggeringly difficult too, as the climbing in the video attests. 10,000 feet over 100 miles was the original goal. A fabulous, well supported fun event. And please be sure to check out their cool jerseys, prominent in the video here.

Up next is the Nature Valley Grand Prix, to be followed by the Lake Tahoe X-Terra, Indoor Power RCV, the Coach Rob Bill Edwards trailer and lastly, because we have the much sought after but seldom enjoyed luxury of time, the Coach Rob & RCVman Mexico Cruise commercial. Was that a deep breath you just took?

On local notes of universal impact, the RCVman will once again take the laboratory onto the field Saturday at Hagg Lake, OR. We saw a few weeks back that the training substitution of volume for intensity works to a point. That point being distance. Over the long, hot and windy 70.3 miles of the Boise race, it was a stretch. Yes, we finished, but the 6:07 showing left a lot to be desired, and a 12th place AG finish was nothing worthy of a letter home, let alone a blog entry. So Saturday we'll test the theory again over the Olympic distance and see if we can draw some results. A quick check from the archival records revealed a 2:30 performance at that venue in 2002, a mere nine years ago. That was also two age groups ago. Yikes. Can the RCVman get within 10% of that? Is a 1:11 bike split followed by a 45 minute 10K remotely possible? Will the handlebar cam be a valid excuse if not? Can a one day a week HIT session (like this morning) satisfy the training requirements to crack a fast Oly time at an age when most rational people are concerned more with their 401K than their 40K?

Short answer: I don't know.

Short term goal: I am going to find out.

Maybe the Valkyries had it right.