Sunday, April 19, 2009

Week 2: Interruptions (04/12/2009 - 04/18/2009)

Ah, the two off days--bad memories of last year... *shudder*

I suppose it's for the best though, Week 2 is kind of the macroscale of Day 2, seeing as one is quite a bit more tired, but not very much more fit. I'm feeling a bit wiped out, but it could be as a result of my time at altitude, or perhaps sleep deprivation.

Cycling is strange in so much that the effect of cumulative fatigue seems to be much less than with running. The great thing is, you can train yourself into the ground, and still be mostly okay to go again the next day. I think this sort of increased license to roll out the miles with reckless abandon is very soothing to my training deprived, neurotic soul.


Sunday 04/12: 35.5 miles, ~2:20, Laps around Washington Park and random loop around the city with Peter in the rain. It started drizzling as soon as we got out the door, and progressed into some pretty heavy rain at the end, but it honestly didn't bother me that much. It was kind of soothing in a dreary sort of way. Felt pretty tired today, basically worked out that the only way to go a semi decent pace was to hang onto Peter's wheel for dear life, and even then I felt like I was working pretty hard. Ate some delicious delicious cupcakes before and afterwards.

Monday 04/13: Off, traveling. Debacle at the airport this morning, and then budget meetings were scheduled late into the evening, so I missed the allergy office hours entirely. Sadly, this will mean that there's a second off day coming this week :(.

Tuesday 04/14: 45.7 miles, 2:51:10 (16.1 mph), Peter's Short Long Loop. Slept in until 5:30, but it was going to be a big day at the office, so I went on this longer ride anyways to shake out some nerves. I thought I'd feel good after the day off, but kind of like with running and off days, I felt a little stiff and out of sorts. The middle hour felt really blah, then started to feel a lot better towards the end.

Wednesday 04/15: 37.6 miles, 2:27:10 (15.2 mph), 10 x RB laps. Wow, this is not a good week for waking up on time. Slept in until 6 am, and honestly felt like I was still asleep for a good portion of this ride. Perhaps as a result, the laps went by fairly pleasantly, but there was a pretty unusual headwind on the uphill side, which I determined to be the cause of the slowness.

Thursday 04/16: 33.9 miles, 2:07:07 (16 mph), Encanto Park to North end of River Trail and back the same way. An exceedingly pleasant ride! Sunny but not too warm. Wind was acting up again, which made the going tough in the beginning, but on the flip side it was kind of neat to be hurtling along effortlessly at 25+ mph for a few miles on the way back. Felt well rested and not tired for the first time in a few days.

Friday 04/17: Off, shots. Got some much needed sleep after staying at work late yesterday to work on my presentation for today. All in all my off days worked out fairly auspiciously, so I will cease the complaining.

Saturday 04/18: 51.2 miles, 3:10:58 (16.1 mph), Peter's Short Long Loop Extended to North end of River Trail. Slept in until 10:30 (!) and kind of got blind sided by the newly uncomfortably warm weather. Apparently this rendered the water supply situation inadequate, and I was feeling pretty parched and exhausted the last 40 minutes or so. Oooof. I made it home though, and drank the entire water pitcher in the fridge.


Training this week
: 204 miles, 12:56:25

Goals
: I'm not finding this function very useful with cycling, primarily bc I have no real training plan, so I'm not going to set these anymore.

1 comment:

Katherine said...

Christ, lady! 200+ miles per week, plus a full time job... you are totally studly. Let's go on some epic rides when I get back (although maybe after I get done doing the 1500 at Oxy).

Seriously though, this is a really respectable amount of volume - amazing. It's about what I was doing when I had my few weeks of cycling greatness over the past summer. And I wasn't doing a thing the rest of the day back then!

Keep it up! You're doing awesome!