Christmas Week #4

You can dance if you want to, you can leave your friends behind; cause your friends don't dance, and if they don't dance well, they're no friends of mine.

Christmas week was an interesting little test, not as much of physical fitness as it was fighting the demons of going home. I haven't stayed at home for as many consecutive days since 2005 (Tues night-Sat afternoon) and frequently I have trouble getting my training in while I'm up there. Most of this is due to being there for a short time, not feeling like dragging my bike up there and the fact that none of my friends run anymore.

In order to counteract this, I actually brought my rollers home. I was determined to ride no matter what, even if it meant riding inside. Fortunately it didn't come to that, and the week yielded my 2nd highest week by hours of 2008!

I ran fairly easy Monday, and despite feeling like ass put in a decent 3600m in the pool on Tuesday. This would be the only swim of the week. Wednesday morning I was home and ran at Hartshorne, site of my ankle's destruction back in 2003. Conditions were rough, with ice and frozen mud all up on the trails, and it was sleeting. I muddled through 11 miles, and called it a day as I then had to begin Christmas shopping.

Thursday was Christmas, and as tradition prescribes, I strive for at least a 50 mile ride. I headed out toward the beach in 50 degree weather, and in spite of the wind managed a decent ride to the end of Sandy Hook, and then up Scenic Drive and back through Middletown. Of course, I left my house at 2, so as I rolled back in at 5 it was dark.

Friday I got out at 12, it was about 10 degrees cooler but I was still rocking short gloves. I was actually really cold, but was too lazy to go back to the house in the first quarter mile. This day I headed south and west, towards Manasquan Reservoir. Some great roads exist out there; little traffic, long, slightly undulating stretches make for fast riding. 3 hours later I was back home, and met up with Pereless at Tatum for an easy 7 miles. He had just eaten at Five Guys so needless to say it was not a fast run. Again, finished in the dark.

Saturday was a little warmer again but this time was actively precipitating. Because it wasn't raining at the start of the ride, I left at noon and headed out for the same ride as Thursday. As I neared the beach, it was super foggy and so humid there were just raindrops in the air. Wind wasn't bad, but I was really cold and wet. But, I managed the 3 hour ride again.

I drove back to Baltimore and due to a housekey fiasco did not go for a run, but when I woke up on Sunday morning it was 65 degrees! Really windy, but 65 degrees. Pretty awesome. I headed down to Columbia and met up with Scotty, and we rolled (on very wet roads) towards Centennial Park to meet Zero. We had a sweet tailwind for the first half of the ride, but then we turned into the wind and it was brutal. We picked it up a little towards the end, then with 3 miles to go Tom got a flat. Another 50 mile ride, making 4 straight - 200 miles in 4 days on 3 hours a day. I was tired.

Since I had only run 3 days this week, I had to run in the afternoon, so after dropping my bike off at TriSpeed (I am working on coming up with a female name for my bike, as I will be spending considerable time with her this year) I headed back down to Patapsco to meet Jake. This run turned into a tough run, the trails were sloppy and I was beat to the street. We crawled through a challenging and slow 11+ miles. At this point I was totally worked and it was 5 o'clock - I had been out since 8.

The week wound up looking like this:

Swim - 3600m (only had access to the pool the one day really)
Run - 37 miles (4 runs)
Bike - 200 miles (4 rides)

18.25 hours. That's a huge week for me and a great way to end 2008. I need to recover a little over the next few days, and then bang from Thursday through Sunday again. Then I plan on taking the following week pretty easy.

In other news, Terps play their bowl game tomorrow at 4:30, so GO TERPS!