Pain and Cookies.

This is what pain looks like.

The BF is the super bike data geek. He not only wears a heart rate monitor during races (which I confess to as well), but he then downloads the data-- including max heart rate and elevation gain-- to his computer for analyzing. Super. Bike. Data. Geek.

I live and die by a heart rate monitor during base and pre-season training-- typically December through February. I also wear one during races come March through July, but then take a break and just ride however I feel like for a couple months before going back to those heart rate-controlled LSDs (long slow distance rides) in the winter.

During last week's CX race though, I worn the BF's downloadable-recordo-matic heart rate monitor. It was a brutal race-- lots of climbing and, on my road-geared 53-25 'cross bike, lots of suffering.

The elevation gain on my lil' chart there-- the green line-- shows four distinct laps. The red line, that's my heart rate. See that little dip in the middle of the red line, about half way through my second lap (refer to the green line)? That's where I started to whimper.

I pass the BF giving me a water bottle feed. "I want to quit!," I cry out. "Shift down into a lower gear and spin!," he replies. My retort? "I'm in the lowest f-in' gear I have!!" And on I continued, the roller coaster heart-rate ride of finishing a 'cross race under-geared and suddenly acutely aware of being understrength-ed.

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Cookies.