Recent Training summary -- April 18

Sorry to have been silent for so long. Things have been busy.
I had April 10 off for that well known secular holiday, Good Friday, and took a daytime ride through Clinton, Killingworth, North Madison, & Madison, about 50 miles, with teammate Jim Kimball, because I could not do the Saturday ride that week.
April 18, our training rides became team rides : this day was the "1/2 way checkup", and it was a route in Southbury that was new to TnT. After being told that the hills were all on the first half of the 55 mile ride, those of us in the "Red" group (the faster riders), were relaxing as we began the last 3.5 miles. To our surprise, we then hit the most strenuous hills of the entire day, a 14% grade followed by a 16% grade (Jim K. has a GPS, that records altitude) -- 16% is a lowest-gear, standing, full bore effort to keep the bike moving. But, "what doesn't kill you [or cause injury] makes you stronger", and all five of us made it. We then phoned the "White" & "Blue" groups to suggest they not try these hills -- they wisely took our advice.
For those of you not familiar with Team In Training, the program is designed to take brand new athletes, and train them to complete a Century Bike ride, or a Marathon or an Olympic Triathlon. Some of our riders, therefore, have never ridden a bike more than a few miles before the training. Thus the Red, White, & Blue groups, each of which has an experienced coach (serving for free) riding with it.
Weekday rides: every week, I am describing the weekend group rides. But we train during the week, too, sometimes twice. This week, I did a 30 mile hill ride on Tuesday -- including Mansion Road (steep two stage hill), Tuttle road (long gradual uphill), and Bethany Mountain (switchbacks and some 10-12% hills, about 1.5 miles worth). This day, the spring peepers (frogs) were out in force, and three different places on the ride, I was greeted by this really loud chirping all around me as I rode along -- quite a memorable sound!
Then on Thursday, I joined Coach Mark Enslein on his namesake Cheshire 25-30 miler. I do this ride at least once a week.