New Year's Week #5

I've got to say, I'm pretty pleased with how things have been going as of late. I'm not doing anything crazy by any means, but getting solid base work in and achieving levels of volume I haven't done consistently in years.

I intended on riding my bike this afternoon for about 2 hours, but with Godsey in town I figured it would be mildly rude to sit on my rollers for that long, or to go out on the road and disappear for a while. So I'm calling it a week as of 7pm on Sunday.

Swim: 1000 meters (more on this)
Bike: 150 miles (2 rides)
Run: 55 miles (6 runs)

This is one of my highest run weeks in the last couple of years (only went over 50 on four occasions last year) and it was done with some pretty good longer runs. I haven't been feeling very swift, and the runs are taking longer than I normally do, but I'm getting it in. I ran 14 miles today with the gang up at NCR Trail. I hate that place. I think it's mental, but it always feels like I'm running way harder than I should be to run 7 minute pace there.

Really psyched on the rides this week. I picked up my tuned up bike on Wednesday, and rode it on Thursday (New Year's Day). I left my house just before 10am, it was really cold and way windier than I expected. The combination of 20+ miles uphill and the headwind resulted in a super slow ride. I wound up picking up some help on the way back down, but was just out there all day by myself, with the exception of maybe 7 miles towards the end with some dude I caught up to. At just under 4.5 hours it was a long time to be out there for 67 miles, but whatever.

Yesterday was the complete opposite. I woke up after not too much sleep, and hopped on my bike at 7:40. I rode up to TriSpeed to meet Tom Stott and Sean, and we rode for an hour before meeting up with a group at 10am at Oregon Ridge. We rode with them for a little, then Tom and I broke off. The roads were amazing; empty, paved and scenic. It felt warmer in the morning, probably due to less wind, but as the wind picked up it became a tailwind for us home. I stopped at 7-11 in Timonium for a Milky Way, and then continued on my way home. Just about 85 miles, on my bike for a little over 5 hours. I came home, ate a little and changed, and then Kip, Godsey, Anthony and I hit the trails of Robert E Lee for about 7 miles.

Had I ridden today it would have been a 185 mile week, but I'm definitely tired from a 6.5 hour day yesterday and a "long" run today. This also isn't taking into account the 3am bedtime last night and another 7:30 wakeup call today.

Swimming - yeah. I didn't have time on Monday or Tuesday due to work, and then Wednesday I didn't realize the pool was closing early so I only had 20 minutes to swim. I just went in for a 150 warmup, 750 hard and then 100 cooldown. It was the least I could do. Then no time over the weekend. I'll get that back this week and maybe take it a little easier on the other two.

So it was a 17 hour week, just slightly below last week's but a great start to the new year. The week ahead should be a little more of the same, I'm going to try to keep around 55 miles a week of running for a few weeks, and hopefully introduce some indoor riding this week during the week. I'm okay with getting outside on the weekends but need to ride a little more during the week.