Push comes to shove if you wait until too late to begin preparing for a major event. Maybe some folks can train up from almost nothing to being able to ride a century within two months; but I know very well that I cannot. That is why I began training up for Tour de Cure this week, even though TdC isn\’t until November.

Day before yesterday I practiced riding 15 mph or more for 5-minute intervals. Thanks to there being only a light wind, I did quite well. There was a time when touching 15 mph even with a good tailwind was hard!

Yesterday I set out to try to repeat Tuesday\’s workout.  It was much harder to reach 15 mph; my legs were protesting, and my heart rate shot up much faster than it had the day before. I had been thinking that I need to work at pushing my pace more than once a week; but I don\’t seem to be ready to do it on consecutive days

This morning I began working on force intervals, making them 20 seconds long. I had a headwind, which actually was not a bad thing. I was telling myself that I NEED to learn to push hard into a wind. Once a week is enough for efforts like this. Over time I\’ll work up to making these force intervals longer.

I saw that I need to do more gut-training. After I had done those hard intervals my stomach started to feel rather uncomfortable; and all I ate before going out to ride was a medium-sized banana. During my weekly long ride, I must work at keeping the fuel coming in while pushing the pace.

I certainly have my work cut out for me, and it\’s better that I make the main thrust now. After all, I don\’t want push to come to shove.