That's the fucking workout that I needed!

Tonight's workout was the 8 mile South Mopac time trial loop. This was after an 3 mile run this morning with 5x1min mod, 2min easy. As I was warming up, I really didn't know how I was going to do since my legs weren't feeling it. I kept warming up and doing a few faster intervals to get my heart rate up. Going into the TT, I would be satisfied with anything under 21:00 and happy with anything under 20:40. You see, for the last 4 TTs that I've done around this loop, they've always been 19:40+/-0:04 no matter the conditions nor my fitness level at the time. I've been feeling really out of shape lately so I thought I was going to be really slow for me tonight.

Tonight, I went out and just kept going. I got my heart rate at 170+ fairly quickly. It hurt like a TT is suppose to hurt, but I wasn't going all out quite yet. When I've been doing intervals lately, my HR gets in the 160-163 range and that's it. At 170+, I didn't know how long I could last before I blew up. I just kept a high cadence and kept pedaling my ass off. I didn't take it strong up the Escarpment hill and I even think I went to the little chain ring. Didn't want to blow my load yet. I was passing a decent amount of people at the time though. I just kept going. Turned around at the half way point and was over 10:00 (10:48 to be exact). I knew that I could do the backside faster than that so I had a decent shot at breaking 21:00. I just kept going at it but I was feeling the affects as usual. I actually felt like I was letting up a bit on the way back. I picked off a few more people, but the ranks were thinning out. Once again, stayed in my aero bars and kept pedaling. Climbed up the last hill and was almost toast. I knew I had maybe half a mile and I could kick it up a bit so I tried. As I was coming up the last hill, I was grunting and puffing to get up out of the saddle and across the line.

I stopped my watch and it read 20:06. I knew the official time would be a little bit faster than that. It was 20:03. Holy fucking shit, I blew my goals away. Finally, I wasn't around 19:40, but I was way, way faster than I was expecting. I guess I do have a few extra horsepower sitting around somewhere. This was a workout that I really, really needed mentally though. I didn't do as fast as I have in the past, but I didn't do so bad either. This proves that even though I feel completely out of shape, I'm just being a fucking pussy about going faster. I need to push myself more because I have it inside of me. The way out was 10:48 with an avg HR of 166 and the way back was 9:18 with an avg HR of 166 so I was pretty even the entire time. I had a max of 177 which was right at the end. If I did it again, I could break 20:00 easily. I'm really stoked about this because I still have a lot of fitness left inside of me, but I'm not letting it out because of issues mentally.

This is the exact type of workout that I needed as a kick in the ass and it feels great. I have regained a lot of my confidence now.