I got to do Cootha reps today

Like my positive attitude?

Actually, I am beginning to really enjoy Cootha.  I think this is because I am improving.  It is a nice feeling.  When I was doing these loops prior to the Gold Coast Half Ironman I was doing them in around 38mins.  Well, now I am doing them in just a smidge over 30mins.  I can't quite figure out why there is such a leap in improvement.  Obviously, I have a new bike, which of course is fabulous.  However I had started to make these improvements on my old bike, so I'm not convinced that it is ALL attributed to the bike.  As Lance would say "It's not about the bike". Another indicator that I am improving is that ordinarily I get passed by the IM girls and Sarah and Alicia, however today this was not the case. I even managed to overtake a couple of guys going up the hill and they looked like cyclists. 

Craig and I left home at 4:34am and made our way in.  For some reason, I just can't get it together for the first part of any ride so I rode like a gumby and we made it there right on 5. We got stuck straight into it and for the first climb I was pretty much able to keep Craig in my sights.  In fact he was only 50mtrs or so in front of me at the top of the climb.  Of course, I lost track of him after that as I'm not really much of a descender - more of a scaredy cat, although I will put some of my improvements down to a bit more of a confident descent, still not fast and I still get overtaken as though I am standing still, but a bit better than my previous efforts.  Of course it helped that today it was not raining!

Now, I can guage the improvements in my climbing from last week in that I very rarely dropped my cadence below 50, it was generally between 50 and 60, whereas last week it was between 40 and 50, but this was a concerted effort on my part.  I do, however have some spots on the mountain where I have to give a bit more focus to and this is from about the 1.5km mark to the 1.85km mark.  I dropped my cadence down below 50 through there and also, the last pinch just before you get to the very top; it dropped just below 50 there for just a brief moment. 

So, next week, I am going to concentrate and try to keep it above 50 cadence for the whole 3 laps - that will be my goal.  I'm pretty sure that if I can do that then I will certainly improve.

I did 3 Cootha reps today and was in at work at 6:50am.  Total ride time just under 2hrs 20mins.