A new peak
Yesterday I hit a personal peak on the bike. I rode the longest & furthest in my cycling career. I have trained for 2 half-ironman, and my peak long ride was 4 hours, but no brick following. Yesterday, I did my first 4:15 ride, followed by a :30 run.
S, was out sick & others out of town, etc., so it was just Heather, Sara & me. I rode down to our "tour de crib" area (funny, name huh? I think Heather & Troy came up with this - it's an area in Paradise Valley where the avg home price is probably 3million. It's a great riding place. Some flats, some climbs, nice bike lanes & few stop lights or traffic) to meet H & S. We spent about an hour doing some short STEEP climbs (no one will be able to say we are NOT hill trained for CDA). We headed down to my old cycling neighborhood Papago Park. Unfortunately a lot of Tempe is a cluster, because of a new light rail system being installed. We had to make an adjustment to a loop I had planned, because of road closures. So, we made a potty break, and turned around. About :30 back on our bikes there was a gun shot!!! Ok, not really....but Sara's first thought as we heard this incredibly loud explosion was - "the Serial Shooter is back!!"
Instantly Sara's back tire was completely flat. So, we pulled over & she started the tire change process. Barely started that is, until Heather exclaimed, "Uh, Sara - we're done... you've got a GASH in your tire." She wasn't kidding. It was a straight line across her tire, that cut completely thru both the tire & tube. I've never seen anything like it. I walked a few feet back & found she had run over a 1" box knife blade. Crazy....
Believe it or not we were able to continue on the ride. Troy picked up a new tire & brought it to us. Unfortunately, it added an extra ~:40mins onto our "non-ride time."
After this, we kinda had a hard time figuring out where we wanted to go. I usually have a great loop planned out for us, but because of stormy weather & bad road conditions, we were just kinda winging it today.
Eventually we ended up at our last potty break/hydration refill with about an hour left to ride. It was already 11:45. We started this ride at about 7:am.
I decided to split off from the girls. I was getting kinda of grumpy from being out there too long (NO ONE'S fault, of course- this stuff just happens sometimes), getting hungry & also not wanting to go back on the SAME route I've been riding on like 3 days a week for several months. SO, as they headed south back to Heather's house for their run, I decided to do a loop heading North, that would get me home a different way. I'm actually glad I did this. I was so ready to be home, that I pushed myself and avg'd about 19mph the whole way. It felt great, and my HR was finally sticking in my zone at around 145-150 (zone = 140-159). With uphills, downhills my hr is all over the place - like, for instance my avg HR on the ride was only 137. I need to work on pushing myself harder, more consistantly, I guess...
The loop I chose was dead on with getting to my 4:15 ride time. I traveled 70.7miles!! This is my new long ride top. I decided to take the "kids" out for my brick run. I never do this, because I am usually fatigue. I felt pretty good though & it wasn't TOO hot. Plus, they'd been bored out of their minds sitting at home with sick Dad all day. I wanted them to help me kick my grumpiness out the door too. Which, of course, they always do. So the kids & I headed out to finish my VERY long workout. It was a little warm, but we were all smiling. Finally, back home at 1:30pm... What a day, huh?
Today is my rest day. I'm tired. It was a pretty long week. My workouts went really well, including my long run 1:50, that I did with Heather. I felt really great on it. It was perfect weather for me. Cool (60deg), some clouds and also some sun - most importantly, humid (helps my lungs). I am rewarding myself (kinda) with a 90min deep tissue massage. Hopefully my muscles aren't too bad for our poor little Kyla. I feel bad sometimes when she had to work out the stiffness.
So, here's the weekly roundup:
Run: ~26miles
Bike: ~102miles Plus 60min trainer workout
Swim: 8000meters
For this week (slightly different because of the relay)
Mon:
Run 1:25 (moderate, low zone 2)
Swim 3500meters (Long, Zone 2)
Tues:
Bike 2:00 (moderate)
Weight training
Wed:
Swim 3000meters (Tempo)
(no run, slight taper for Race!)
Thurs:
Pre-race run - :35mins
35 minutes with 5x10 second pickups
Fri:
Relay - My legs are as follows:
Leg 1 (approx 3:20pm Fri) 5.6miles, relatively flat
Leg 2 (approx 2:00am Sat) 6.2miles, downhill
Leg 3 (approx 10:am Sat) 4.3miles, UPHILL
Sat:
continued relay
Sun:
3:30 ride/:30brick - this will depend entirely on how my body feels after the realy, lack of sleep etc.
I will be posting tomorrow about an interview with the Arizona Republic... stay tuned :-)
S, was out sick & others out of town, etc., so it was just Heather, Sara & me. I rode down to our "tour de crib" area (funny, name huh? I think Heather & Troy came up with this - it's an area in Paradise Valley where the avg home price is probably 3million. It's a great riding place. Some flats, some climbs, nice bike lanes & few stop lights or traffic) to meet H & S. We spent about an hour doing some short STEEP climbs (no one will be able to say we are NOT hill trained for CDA). We headed down to my old cycling neighborhood Papago Park. Unfortunately a lot of Tempe is a cluster, because of a new light rail system being installed. We had to make an adjustment to a loop I had planned, because of road closures. So, we made a potty break, and turned around. About :30 back on our bikes there was a gun shot!!! Ok, not really....but Sara's first thought as we heard this incredibly loud explosion was - "the Serial Shooter is back!!"
Instantly Sara's back tire was completely flat. So, we pulled over & she started the tire change process. Barely started that is, until Heather exclaimed, "Uh, Sara - we're done... you've got a GASH in your tire." She wasn't kidding. It was a straight line across her tire, that cut completely thru both the tire & tube. I've never seen anything like it. I walked a few feet back & found she had run over a 1" box knife blade. Crazy....
Believe it or not we were able to continue on the ride. Troy picked up a new tire & brought it to us. Unfortunately, it added an extra ~:40mins onto our "non-ride time."
After this, we kinda had a hard time figuring out where we wanted to go. I usually have a great loop planned out for us, but because of stormy weather & bad road conditions, we were just kinda winging it today.
Eventually we ended up at our last potty break/hydration refill with about an hour left to ride. It was already 11:45. We started this ride at about 7:am.
I decided to split off from the girls. I was getting kinda of grumpy from being out there too long (NO ONE'S fault, of course- this stuff just happens sometimes), getting hungry & also not wanting to go back on the SAME route I've been riding on like 3 days a week for several months. SO, as they headed south back to Heather's house for their run, I decided to do a loop heading North, that would get me home a different way. I'm actually glad I did this. I was so ready to be home, that I pushed myself and avg'd about 19mph the whole way. It felt great, and my HR was finally sticking in my zone at around 145-150 (zone = 140-159). With uphills, downhills my hr is all over the place - like, for instance my avg HR on the ride was only 137. I need to work on pushing myself harder, more consistantly, I guess...
The loop I chose was dead on with getting to my 4:15 ride time. I traveled 70.7miles!! This is my new long ride top. I decided to take the "kids" out for my brick run. I never do this, because I am usually fatigue. I felt pretty good though & it wasn't TOO hot. Plus, they'd been bored out of their minds sitting at home with sick Dad all day. I wanted them to help me kick my grumpiness out the door too. Which, of course, they always do. So the kids & I headed out to finish my VERY long workout. It was a little warm, but we were all smiling. Finally, back home at 1:30pm... What a day, huh?
Today is my rest day. I'm tired. It was a pretty long week. My workouts went really well, including my long run 1:50, that I did with Heather. I felt really great on it. It was perfect weather for me. Cool (60deg), some clouds and also some sun - most importantly, humid (helps my lungs). I am rewarding myself (kinda) with a 90min deep tissue massage. Hopefully my muscles aren't too bad for our poor little Kyla. I feel bad sometimes when she had to work out the stiffness.
So, here's the weekly roundup:
Run: ~26miles
Bike: ~102miles Plus 60min trainer workout
Swim: 8000meters
For this week (slightly different because of the relay)
Mon:
Run 1:25 (moderate, low zone 2)
Swim 3500meters (Long, Zone 2)
Tues:
Bike 2:00 (moderate)
Weight training
Wed:
Swim 3000meters (Tempo)
(no run, slight taper for Race!)
Thurs:
Pre-race run - :35mins
35 minutes with 5x10 second pickups
Fri:
Relay - My legs are as follows:
Leg 1 (approx 3:20pm Fri) 5.6miles, relatively flat
Leg 2 (approx 2:00am Sat) 6.2miles, downhill
Leg 3 (approx 10:am Sat) 4.3miles, UPHILL
Sat:
continued relay
Sun:
3:30 ride/:30brick - this will depend entirely on how my body feels after the realy, lack of sleep etc.
I will be posting tomorrow about an interview with the Arizona Republic... stay tuned :-)
Comments