"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're probably right." - Henry Ford

Today I went out to pre-ride the courses for this weekend's race. The TT is a 4 mile climb, but it's a lot like Gold Camp, so it's not too steep. In the process of psyching myself up I had to obsess about who was on the start list . I only allowed myself about 10 minutes of that, then I had to put it away. It doesn't really matter who shows up, there are always fast girls at any race worth going to. That's why I'm here. Now I'm just working on visualizing myself hanging on The Hammer's wheel whilst flying up the mountain.

I also did some loops on the road race course. Nothing too hard, just one power hill for the KOM. The hill happens to be just 2 minutes long, which was perfect for the intervals I had to do today. During my intervals I started by visualizing myself laying down the stick and saying "come on Kristen Armstrong, get some of this!". Then after a few times I regressed to thinking "I wonder if this is what it's going to feel like when I'm hanging on for dear life up this hill." In the end I realized that any crazy ideas I have for attacking during this race I should just put to bed right now. By the last repeat my legs were starting to hurt and I was really starting to slow down. So given that I only did it 5 times today and we have to do it NINE times on Saturday, I think I'll keep my ants in my pants and just work on getting up it unscathed all nine times.