As such things go, life was determined to force upon me another "rest week"...
So far, work has not been cooperating with the getting into racing shape initiative. Whether it's the 2 am leaving times or the massive quantities of CPK pizzas that the team has ordered in for the long night ahead, I'm definitely getting fatter, not fitter.
Sadly, my 8 week run of putting in decent mileage has come to an end with this week. It was one of those things where I woke up on Saturday morning, not feeling free or even relieved... but just completely exhausted and deflated. It really hasn't been a good week.
Sunday 05/31: 78.7 miles, 4:32:03 (17.3 mph) Seal Beach the Short Way. Oddly enough, the week started off auspiciously. Rode a record time for this course, despite overshooting one of my turns and adding and extra 2 blocks. I felt surprisingly unaffected by yesterday's 105 mile ride. I even felt peppy enough to do 30 second sprints every hour like Peter. Otherwise, just tried to keep it easy except for a 10 minute segment where I had to pick it up a bit to hold off a guy who was trying to pass me. He seemed unamused. It's not personal buddy, I'm just a competitive person.
Monday 06/01 - Wednesday 06/03: Off, this was a really tough week. On Monday morning, I attended the funeral of co-worker, a 24 year old girl. On Tuesday and Wednesday, I worked well past midnight. I felt horrible, physically, mentally, emotionally.
Thursday 06/04: 43.16 miles, 2:54:50 (14.9 mph) Angeles Crest to Red Box. Got to bed at 1 am and woke up at 5 am, I decided that being fat and disgusting was worse feeling than being sleep deprived, so I actually managed to go on this ride. Basically tried out some higher cadences per Will's suggestion, and found the journey to be both easier and faster than before. Felt good, so I threw in some 30 second surges every half hour to break up some of the easy climbing. This ride was a bright spot in an otherwise pretty terrible week.
Friday 06/05: Off, shots. Finished work at 8 pm, a record for this week! Went to get thai food, and consume large quantities of cocktails and cupcakes with my coworkers to celebrate our survival.
Saturday 06/06: 45.7 miles, 2:35:22 (17.6 mph) Peter's Short Long Loop. Measurements approximate on this one. My cyclocomputer had a nervous breakdown in the middle of this ride, for unknown reasons. It seems okay now, but I was not amused. I guess I wasn't really in the mood to be amused by anything today. I tried to get up at a reasonable hour to go on a long ride, but I dozed guiltily until about 11am, at which I realized that I had to go to the bank before it closed at 1 pm. Despite 10 hours of sleep, I still felt really exhausted in all ways... and the overcast weather was uninspiring for a long ride. This was exactly like the cycling equivalent of when you go on a dinky 5-6 mile run to alleviate the guilt of not doing your longer/harder workout. I felt really tired though, even on this short flat ride... pretty demoralizing.
Training this week: 167.6 miles, 10:02:15
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Week 8: Rest??? (05/24/2009 - 05/30/2009)
And the council has spoken--it's been a pretty long run of weeks now where something (mileage or gradient) has increased every week. It's time for a rest week. Though that's where the consensus ends. What exactly constitutes a rest week?
I've received some negative feedback on how I've elected to implement my rest week, but let's let the outcomes be the final judge. We will take the next week or so to assess whether more drastic resting measures are necessary. At worst, I can try again next week.
**Unrelated Update** Colorado means new data! Since my trusty old Target scale has kicked the bucket, I can only measure my obesity every few weeks. I am happy to report that I've crossed the halfway mark. At the beginning of this journey, I weighed in at a corpulent 120+ pounds. I'm now down to 111, so it's 10 down, 10 to go. If only food wasn't so very very delicious...
Sunday 05/24: 43.4 miles, about 3:30, Turkey Creek to High Grade Road, with a double back to do the steep part of HGR. A charmed ride with zero rain, despite the generally wet conditions. I felt pretty horrible in the beginning with a stomach ache, but felt progressively better. The path was very pretty and we even got some sunshine. This ride was shorter than I would have liked, but it was all quality stuff, with the climbing starting right away. There was a nice mix of steepnesses and a lot of changes in scenery... which is not naturally my preference, but it was a nice change of pace. I was worried about the second consecutive climbing day, but felt like I held up very nicely. I'm adjusting to this bike and the gearing isn't as bad as I thought it would be. Still felt good towards the end, but the decision to head back was the right one, as the torrential downpour started immediately after we got into the car.
Monday 05/25: 58.5 miles, about 3:25, Peter's "Flat" Rolling Boulder ride. Our luck ran out with the weather on this ride, but it wasn't too bad. Headed out away from the mountains, past a llama farm (they are SO adorable!) and out into the plains outside of Boulder. Was just trying to enjoy a nice mellow ride, but somehow got goaded into doing a significant chunk at high intensity. I think I went about 45 minutes, starting under threshold and gradually accelerating. There was a nice stretch in there that felt just about threshold and surprisingly sustainable, but the problem was that there was a liberal sprinkling of hills that prevented me from settling into a rhythm. For some reason, this caused me to push harder and harder, until it stopped feeling very sustainable. Backed off and felt better pretty quickly. Saw a beautiful climb out by Carter Lake, but the clouds were closing in, so we turned back. Got rained on on the way home, but it wasn't that bad. It was actually really fun to go fast, and I was pleased that I could do it at all, since my usual diet these days consists almost exclusively of mellow effort levels.
Tuesday 05/26: Off, travel back home. A sad day :(.
Wednesday 05/27: Off. Legs feel really rested and good, the rest of me did not. I did manage to get up at 5 am, but decided to go back to sleep given how awful I felt and knowing that I was booked into meetings straight from 10 am to 8 pm. I felt really guilty about not riding, even knowing that it was the responsible decision to make.
Thursday 05/28: 45.7 miles, 2:31:26 (18.1 mph) Peter's Short Long Loop. Woke up extra early at 4:30 am to get this done before my first morning meeting. The darkness was a little scary in terms of not being able to see the crap on the road, but it was actually kind of peaceful and nice. Felt really good except for a few miles in the middle around where the dam is. Still managed to pick up my first > 18 mph! For some reason, I like that middle third of this ride the least. I had decided a while back that when I started consistently completing this ride in the 2:30 range, I would tack on the extra 5 miles or so to get to the North end of the River Trail before doubling back to Encanto Park... but I've been dragging my feet on implementing this because it would elongate the crappy middle section.
Another footnote to this day is that I ran for the first time today, rather serendipitously. Despite my valiant efforts to the contrary, I arrived 3 minutes too late to work, thus missing the team's departure for our offsite meeting. Not knowing how to get to my destination, I wasted another 4 minutes trying to figure out directions, leaving me 8 minutes to arrive. Thankfully I was wearing my running shoes with my new orthotics, per my podiatrist's recommendation, so run I did at a nice good tempo pace for about 5 to 7 minutes. It felt wonderful for about 200m after which it felt really horrible. Then after I arrived my hamstrings and calves started to seize up. They still do not feel very wonderful. Running is hard.
Friday 05/29: Off, shots. Man, I don't know how I ever used to run... my legs are still feeling shot. Just really tight and sore. Terrible. I hope this doesn't end up affecting tomorrow's ride. I've potentially got a big day planned!
Saturday 05/30: 105 miles, 7:39:45 (13.7 mph) Angeles Crest to Dawson's Saddle. An awesome super fun ride with Will and Ian. There were some grumblings along the way, but ultimately everyone made it happily to the peak before you descend into Wrightwood. A little rain and a little overcast, but it was really neat! We went at a nice mellow pace, so I felt good the whole way through. For some reason I felt inspired to hammer it a little bit on the last mile or so up to the saddle, feeling especially good at this point.
It was also my first time past Red Box on the 2, so there was plenty of amusing new scenery, and 7 hours actually goes by real quick with good company. I've been feeling really crummy (unrelated to cycling) this week, so I really appreciated this awesome ride. It also made me feel like the Wrightwood ride was definitely within reach some day in the near future. Lunch and dinner at Newcombe's Ranch. Felt a little barfy immediately after eating, but good times.
Training this week: 252.6 miles, 17:06:11
I've received some negative feedback on how I've elected to implement my rest week, but let's let the outcomes be the final judge. We will take the next week or so to assess whether more drastic resting measures are necessary. At worst, I can try again next week.
**Unrelated Update** Colorado means new data! Since my trusty old Target scale has kicked the bucket, I can only measure my obesity every few weeks. I am happy to report that I've crossed the halfway mark. At the beginning of this journey, I weighed in at a corpulent 120+ pounds. I'm now down to 111, so it's 10 down, 10 to go. If only food wasn't so very very delicious...
Sunday 05/24: 43.4 miles, about 3:30, Turkey Creek to High Grade Road, with a double back to do the steep part of HGR. A charmed ride with zero rain, despite the generally wet conditions. I felt pretty horrible in the beginning with a stomach ache, but felt progressively better. The path was very pretty and we even got some sunshine. This ride was shorter than I would have liked, but it was all quality stuff, with the climbing starting right away. There was a nice mix of steepnesses and a lot of changes in scenery... which is not naturally my preference, but it was a nice change of pace. I was worried about the second consecutive climbing day, but felt like I held up very nicely. I'm adjusting to this bike and the gearing isn't as bad as I thought it would be. Still felt good towards the end, but the decision to head back was the right one, as the torrential downpour started immediately after we got into the car.
Monday 05/25: 58.5 miles, about 3:25, Peter's "Flat" Rolling Boulder ride. Our luck ran out with the weather on this ride, but it wasn't too bad. Headed out away from the mountains, past a llama farm (they are SO adorable!) and out into the plains outside of Boulder. Was just trying to enjoy a nice mellow ride, but somehow got goaded into doing a significant chunk at high intensity. I think I went about 45 minutes, starting under threshold and gradually accelerating. There was a nice stretch in there that felt just about threshold and surprisingly sustainable, but the problem was that there was a liberal sprinkling of hills that prevented me from settling into a rhythm. For some reason, this caused me to push harder and harder, until it stopped feeling very sustainable. Backed off and felt better pretty quickly. Saw a beautiful climb out by Carter Lake, but the clouds were closing in, so we turned back. Got rained on on the way home, but it wasn't that bad. It was actually really fun to go fast, and I was pleased that I could do it at all, since my usual diet these days consists almost exclusively of mellow effort levels.
Tuesday 05/26: Off, travel back home. A sad day :(.
Wednesday 05/27: Off. Legs feel really rested and good, the rest of me did not. I did manage to get up at 5 am, but decided to go back to sleep given how awful I felt and knowing that I was booked into meetings straight from 10 am to 8 pm. I felt really guilty about not riding, even knowing that it was the responsible decision to make.
Thursday 05/28: 45.7 miles, 2:31:26 (18.1 mph) Peter's Short Long Loop. Woke up extra early at 4:30 am to get this done before my first morning meeting. The darkness was a little scary in terms of not being able to see the crap on the road, but it was actually kind of peaceful and nice. Felt really good except for a few miles in the middle around where the dam is. Still managed to pick up my first > 18 mph! For some reason, I like that middle third of this ride the least. I had decided a while back that when I started consistently completing this ride in the 2:30 range, I would tack on the extra 5 miles or so to get to the North end of the River Trail before doubling back to Encanto Park... but I've been dragging my feet on implementing this because it would elongate the crappy middle section.
Another footnote to this day is that I ran for the first time today, rather serendipitously. Despite my valiant efforts to the contrary, I arrived 3 minutes too late to work, thus missing the team's departure for our offsite meeting. Not knowing how to get to my destination, I wasted another 4 minutes trying to figure out directions, leaving me 8 minutes to arrive. Thankfully I was wearing my running shoes with my new orthotics, per my podiatrist's recommendation, so run I did at a nice good tempo pace for about 5 to 7 minutes. It felt wonderful for about 200m after which it felt really horrible. Then after I arrived my hamstrings and calves started to seize up. They still do not feel very wonderful. Running is hard.
Friday 05/29: Off, shots. Man, I don't know how I ever used to run... my legs are still feeling shot. Just really tight and sore. Terrible. I hope this doesn't end up affecting tomorrow's ride. I've potentially got a big day planned!
Saturday 05/30: 105 miles, 7:39:45 (13.7 mph) Angeles Crest to Dawson's Saddle. An awesome super fun ride with Will and Ian. There were some grumblings along the way, but ultimately everyone made it happily to the peak before you descend into Wrightwood. A little rain and a little overcast, but it was really neat! We went at a nice mellow pace, so I felt good the whole way through. For some reason I felt inspired to hammer it a little bit on the last mile or so up to the saddle, feeling especially good at this point.
It was also my first time past Red Box on the 2, so there was plenty of amusing new scenery, and 7 hours actually goes by real quick with good company. I've been feeling really crummy (unrelated to cycling) this week, so I really appreciated this awesome ride. It also made me feel like the Wrightwood ride was definitely within reach some day in the near future. Lunch and dinner at Newcombe's Ranch. Felt a little barfy immediately after eating, but good times.
Training this week: 252.6 miles, 17:06:11
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Week 7: Allergies (05/17/2009 - 05/23/2009)
The plague of the yellow flowers has descended upon southern california... and that means bad times for me and respiration. Despite the fact that we've had little rain, the hills are alive--with the sound of labored breathing. I'm not really sure what they are... in fact, I'm pretty sure there are multiple varieties of pollen-y death, but they are here in force.
As far as I can tell, the yellow ones are the worst. Maybe its because they are the most common, but they are definitely the worst. They've been slowly gaining strength over the past few weeks, but now they are everywhere. I can smell them in the morning, just before my nasal passages close up. I would say that I can't wait for them to go away, but I know that when they do, it will be because of the sweltering summer heat, which brings challenges of its own. Oh, winter in California, how I miss you.
(P.S. Warning to those who may be headed to the Baldy Village area--don't even get me started on the plague of brown flies. *Shudder* They actually seem pretty harmless, other than being kind of nasty, but boy do they hurt when you crash into them descending at 45 mph)
Sunday 05/17: 78.2 miles, 4:46:02 (16.4 mph) Seal Beach the short way. Oooof. I definitely had low expectations for this ride, given that I woke up in the middle of the night in pain from the Ski Lifts ride. I had to empty my fridge of all ice packs and place them on my legs and take some advil just to calm the pain and inflammation. Somehow everything calmed down by the morning though, so off I went. It felt a little tired, but I just kept it super easy and it was fine. Felt loads better than last week's despite the fact that the Saturday ride was harder. Felt pretty good about this ride, and had some delicious delicious chinese food afterwards with the gang.
Monday 05/18: Off. Busy day at work, legs need a break after the weekend.
Tuesday 05/19: Off. Legs still feeling pretty trashed from the weekend. Also, insanely sleep deprived feeling. Blehhhhh....
Wednesday 05/20: 43.2 miles, 3:00:09 (14.3 mph) Angeles Crest to Red Box. This was a horrible ride, and I couldn't figure out why, until I came home and found yesterday's allergy medication untaken on the counter. Sometimes it doesn't feel like the Zyrtec really helps, but it just takes one day of not taking it to remind me how bad it can get. A normal person might take it easy on a day they didn't feel so good, but I was frustrated and cranky and took it out on the climb by raging against my tired legs. I was also experimenting with gear combos, and dropped my chain, which made me even more irate. I think I tired myself out doing weird little surges on the climb and felt kind of sluggish on the way home. Bah, humbug.
Thursday 05/21: 45.7 miles, 2:37:21 (17.3 mph) Peter's Short Long Loop. Tired. I really almost didn't get up to go on this ride... but I've already taken an extra rest day so far, so in the end I just couldn't justify it. For some reason I feel like the fatigue just never completely left my legs after the Ski Lifts. It wasn't a bad ride, I just felt like my legs had no zip today... and I was sad because this is the first Peter's Short Long Loop that hasn't been faster than the one before :(.
Friday 05/22: Off, shots. Travel to Colorado for the long weekend!
Saturday 05/23: 69 miles, 4:45:08, Peak to Peak Highway starting in Boulder, back through Nederland. The bad weather foiled the planned Trial Run of the Mt Evans Hill Climb route, but we got to do this awesome ride instead! Started on a really beautiful canyon path from Boulder, and climbed up to a mountain road that was optimistically described as "rolling" or "mostly downhill". It was really overcast and rained at one point, but I kind of thought that that added to the awesomeness. Peter may have disagreed. I felt a little uncertain at some junctures in this ride, but ended up feeling pretty good the whole way. I think I went more conservatively than I could have due to not knowing how much climbing was left. It actually felt kind of anticlimatic when the descent started. It felt like we were descending for a very long time, but the heavy ass steel frame was actually pretty sweet on the downhills. I was pleasantly surprised at not needing any (non existent) smaller gears.
Training this week: 236 miles, 15:08:40
As far as I can tell, the yellow ones are the worst. Maybe its because they are the most common, but they are definitely the worst. They've been slowly gaining strength over the past few weeks, but now they are everywhere. I can smell them in the morning, just before my nasal passages close up. I would say that I can't wait for them to go away, but I know that when they do, it will be because of the sweltering summer heat, which brings challenges of its own. Oh, winter in California, how I miss you.
(P.S. Warning to those who may be headed to the Baldy Village area--don't even get me started on the plague of brown flies. *Shudder* They actually seem pretty harmless, other than being kind of nasty, but boy do they hurt when you crash into them descending at 45 mph)
Sunday 05/17: 78.2 miles, 4:46:02 (16.4 mph) Seal Beach the short way. Oooof. I definitely had low expectations for this ride, given that I woke up in the middle of the night in pain from the Ski Lifts ride. I had to empty my fridge of all ice packs and place them on my legs and take some advil just to calm the pain and inflammation. Somehow everything calmed down by the morning though, so off I went. It felt a little tired, but I just kept it super easy and it was fine. Felt loads better than last week's despite the fact that the Saturday ride was harder. Felt pretty good about this ride, and had some delicious delicious chinese food afterwards with the gang.
Monday 05/18: Off. Busy day at work, legs need a break after the weekend.
Tuesday 05/19: Off. Legs still feeling pretty trashed from the weekend. Also, insanely sleep deprived feeling. Blehhhhh....
Wednesday 05/20: 43.2 miles, 3:00:09 (14.3 mph) Angeles Crest to Red Box. This was a horrible ride, and I couldn't figure out why, until I came home and found yesterday's allergy medication untaken on the counter. Sometimes it doesn't feel like the Zyrtec really helps, but it just takes one day of not taking it to remind me how bad it can get. A normal person might take it easy on a day they didn't feel so good, but I was frustrated and cranky and took it out on the climb by raging against my tired legs. I was also experimenting with gear combos, and dropped my chain, which made me even more irate. I think I tired myself out doing weird little surges on the climb and felt kind of sluggish on the way home. Bah, humbug.
Thursday 05/21: 45.7 miles, 2:37:21 (17.3 mph) Peter's Short Long Loop. Tired. I really almost didn't get up to go on this ride... but I've already taken an extra rest day so far, so in the end I just couldn't justify it. For some reason I feel like the fatigue just never completely left my legs after the Ski Lifts. It wasn't a bad ride, I just felt like my legs had no zip today... and I was sad because this is the first Peter's Short Long Loop that hasn't been faster than the one before :(.
Friday 05/22: Off, shots. Travel to Colorado for the long weekend!
Saturday 05/23: 69 miles, 4:45:08, Peak to Peak Highway starting in Boulder, back through Nederland. The bad weather foiled the planned Trial Run of the Mt Evans Hill Climb route, but we got to do this awesome ride instead! Started on a really beautiful canyon path from Boulder, and climbed up to a mountain road that was optimistically described as "rolling" or "mostly downhill". It was really overcast and rained at one point, but I kind of thought that that added to the awesomeness. Peter may have disagreed. I felt a little uncertain at some junctures in this ride, but ended up feeling pretty good the whole way. I think I went more conservatively than I could have due to not knowing how much climbing was left. It actually felt kind of anticlimatic when the descent started. It felt like we were descending for a very long time, but the heavy ass steel frame was actually pretty sweet on the downhills. I was pleasantly surprised at not needing any (non existent) smaller gears.
Training this week: 236 miles, 15:08:40
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Week 6: Tired! (05/10/2009 - 05/16/2009)
The mountains are tough. At this point, its hard to predict how each ride will affect me. I think I'm treading the line between improvement and overtrained. This week has had some great rides and some terrible rides, and Saturday's ride to the ski lifts was probably highly unadvised. It's definitely more complicated than flats.
The good thing though, is that these big rides just don't seem as epic as they did the first time around. Everything feels a little bit more manageable. Except for the ski lifts. I think that the reason I don't remember what it was like the first time is because I've repressed those horrible horrible memories.
Sunday 05/10: 78 miles, 4:56:54 (15.7 mph), a horrible frankenstein Seal Beach the short way. Ouch. This was not a good ride... I didn't anticipate how much Saturday's mountain ride would take out of me. It was one of those things where I started out vaguely exhausted and stayed that way the entire time. It wasn't that anything felt particularly bad, I just didn't have any speed. And Peter ate all of my gus. Felt tired and cranky.
Monday 05/11: Off, dropped Peter off at the airport in the morning and promptly went back to sleep. Given how exhausted I felt yesterday, I think it was a well deserved day off.
Tuesday 05/12: Off, unplanned failure. Legs were feeling fine, but sleep deprivation is taking its toll. Dozed guiltily for an hour after my alarm went off, until I just ran out of time to ride. Didn't really feel any less sleepy when I woke up.
Wednesday 05/13: 43 miles, 2:59:00 (14.4 mph), Angeles Crest to Red Box. Another late night at work, but I was determined to do this ride after yesterday's unplanned day off. Despite two consecutive off days, every bone in my body felt tired. Off to a sluggish start, wondering if today I'd just turn back at Clear Creek, but somehow I rallied once I hit the climb. I kept being bothered by the feeling that I was going slower than last week, but when I came through Clear Creek in 1:36 (2 minutes faster than last week), I decided to go on. Felt a lot better on this portion, very peaceful and nice. Got to Red Box in 2:04, and descended comfortably, finished feeling really strong, all of the tiredness was gone. So weird.
Thursday 05/14: 45.7 miles, 2:33:29 (17.8 mph), Peter's Short Long Loop. Hard to get moving in the beginning, for some reason I had trouble getting my cadence up, but that cleared up after about 20 minutes. Felt really good after that. Strong and consistent, felt completely relaxed and easy. After how terrible I felt in the beginning of the week, this ride was a real confidence boost. A time record on this loop by 8 minutes. There was a bee on my thigh for about 5 miles.... I was terrified of being stung, but then thankfully it flew off uneventfully.
Friday 05/15: Off, shots. So, so tired. I got 8 hours of sleep for the first time this week, but I didn't even feel rested when I woke up. I guess getting up at 5 am after working until 10 pm just starts to take a toll. Trying to decide whether to sleep in tomorrow and risk the high temperatures.
Saturday 05/16: 90.8 miles, 6:44:14 (13.4 mph), GMR to GRR to Baldy Ski Lifts (!), a highly ill-advised ride. I wasn't really sure why I felt compelled to do this ride TODAY, but I did. Maybe it's because Peter keeps talking about demo-ing the Mt. Evan's hill climb when I go there next weekend... I guess I wanted to feel competent at climbing, but unfortunately this kind of had the reverse effect. It wasn't a bad ride, 85 miles of it was just fine, but the 5 miles between Baldy village and the ski lifts were possibly, no absolutely, the worst 5 miles I've ever ridden in my life. There may be no shame in Granny Gear, but there's definitely shame in stopping mid climb--and I had to stop multiple times. I guess I figured stopping was still less shameful than bailing on the climb, so that's what I did. But I am now living proof that it IS indeed possible to climb at 3.7 mph, and not fall over. It was weird though, because I felt alright descending and going home, and didn't feel completely destroyed... I just completely imploded on this one steep section. Gotta figure out how to fix this, I will conquer the ski lifts... some day.
Training this week: 257.6 miles, 17:13:37
The good thing though, is that these big rides just don't seem as epic as they did the first time around. Everything feels a little bit more manageable. Except for the ski lifts. I think that the reason I don't remember what it was like the first time is because I've repressed those horrible horrible memories.
Sunday 05/10: 78 miles, 4:56:54 (15.7 mph), a horrible frankenstein Seal Beach the short way. Ouch. This was not a good ride... I didn't anticipate how much Saturday's mountain ride would take out of me. It was one of those things where I started out vaguely exhausted and stayed that way the entire time. It wasn't that anything felt particularly bad, I just didn't have any speed. And Peter ate all of my gus. Felt tired and cranky.
Monday 05/11: Off, dropped Peter off at the airport in the morning and promptly went back to sleep. Given how exhausted I felt yesterday, I think it was a well deserved day off.
Tuesday 05/12: Off, unplanned failure. Legs were feeling fine, but sleep deprivation is taking its toll. Dozed guiltily for an hour after my alarm went off, until I just ran out of time to ride. Didn't really feel any less sleepy when I woke up.
Wednesday 05/13: 43 miles, 2:59:00 (14.4 mph), Angeles Crest to Red Box. Another late night at work, but I was determined to do this ride after yesterday's unplanned day off. Despite two consecutive off days, every bone in my body felt tired. Off to a sluggish start, wondering if today I'd just turn back at Clear Creek, but somehow I rallied once I hit the climb. I kept being bothered by the feeling that I was going slower than last week, but when I came through Clear Creek in 1:36 (2 minutes faster than last week), I decided to go on. Felt a lot better on this portion, very peaceful and nice. Got to Red Box in 2:04, and descended comfortably, finished feeling really strong, all of the tiredness was gone. So weird.
Thursday 05/14: 45.7 miles, 2:33:29 (17.8 mph), Peter's Short Long Loop. Hard to get moving in the beginning, for some reason I had trouble getting my cadence up, but that cleared up after about 20 minutes. Felt really good after that. Strong and consistent, felt completely relaxed and easy. After how terrible I felt in the beginning of the week, this ride was a real confidence boost. A time record on this loop by 8 minutes. There was a bee on my thigh for about 5 miles.... I was terrified of being stung, but then thankfully it flew off uneventfully.
Friday 05/15: Off, shots. So, so tired. I got 8 hours of sleep for the first time this week, but I didn't even feel rested when I woke up. I guess getting up at 5 am after working until 10 pm just starts to take a toll. Trying to decide whether to sleep in tomorrow and risk the high temperatures.
Saturday 05/16: 90.8 miles, 6:44:14 (13.4 mph), GMR to GRR to Baldy Ski Lifts (!), a highly ill-advised ride. I wasn't really sure why I felt compelled to do this ride TODAY, but I did. Maybe it's because Peter keeps talking about demo-ing the Mt. Evan's hill climb when I go there next weekend... I guess I wanted to feel competent at climbing, but unfortunately this kind of had the reverse effect. It wasn't a bad ride, 85 miles of it was just fine, but the 5 miles between Baldy village and the ski lifts were possibly, no absolutely, the worst 5 miles I've ever ridden in my life. There may be no shame in Granny Gear, but there's definitely shame in stopping mid climb--and I had to stop multiple times. I guess I figured stopping was still less shameful than bailing on the climb, so that's what I did. But I am now living proof that it IS indeed possible to climb at 3.7 mph, and not fall over. It was weird though, because I felt alright descending and going home, and didn't feel completely destroyed... I just completely imploded on this one steep section. Gotta figure out how to fix this, I will conquer the ski lifts... some day.
Training this week: 257.6 miles, 17:13:37
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Week 5: Century (05/03/2009 - 05/09/2009)
100, the magical number. I've only done one other 100+ mile ride, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It's likely that I'll hit the mountains this week or next, which means that my mileage will probably dip, so I wanted to squeeze this ride in before that happened.
It turned out to be an interesting ride. Last time, I remember basically being exhausted to tears, but I had KB for company so the distance and time went by pretty quickly. This time, it was harder mentally than physically. My wish for the wind to calm down from yesterday... did NOT come true.
This ride made me think about how fickle one's perception of the passage of time can be. The wind was really brutal (worse than yesterday) on my way down to Seal Beach, and for some reason, going slowly feels mentally taxing, in some strange reversal of the laws of relativity... it felt as though the passage of time itself had slowed to a crawl. At one point, I realized that my face had gotten fixed into a grimace for the past hour or so, but then it also occurred to me that I really wasn't exerting myself more than normal, I was just going slower.
I felt really frustrated and demoralized arriving at my halfway point a good 10 minutes behind the split that I needed to achieve my performance goals (sub-6 hours, > 17 mph). Things were not looking good for me and this ride at this point...
In hindsight it was only really bad for about an hour, but that hour felt like the longest hour of the entire ride. In contrast, my mood and even my perception of my level of tiredness improved drastically once I turned around and was now going at a good clip with the wind behind me. I was pretty blissed out for a while before the wind shifted again and I had to cope with the headwind again on the last segment.
Thankfully by this point, I had a new motivator--I realized that my goals, once seemingly lost, were within reach, if I rode a strong last 15 miles. And once again, when one is racing the clock, the passage of time speeds up to warp speed. I actually did ride a strong last segment, and was really happy with how much fight was still in my legs at that stage, but it just wasn't enough to hang onto 17 mph. But hey, 1 of 2 goals isn't a complete disaster.
Sunday 05/03: 101 miles, 5:58:12 (16.9 mph), Seal Beach the long way via Encanto Park with a detour to the Rosemead Crossing to be safely over 100 miles. Felt a lot better at the end than I imagined that I would. I fought hard to keep my 17.0 mph average on the last 5 miles, but it just wasn't meant to be with the slight uphill and headwind. Felt kind of consterned, but I'll take it in stride. Overall, I was encouraged by how well I held up.
Monday 05/04: 31.4 miles, 1:54:05 (16.5 mph), 8 x RB laps. A nice morning shake out from yesterday. I was actually pretty certain that I would not wake up/be too tired to ride today, but miraculously, my eyes blinked open at 6:30, so I decided to get up and squeeze in a short ride. Felt pretty freakin' fantastic for having gone 100 miles the day before. A little bit tired, but not too much worse for the wear. However, mental note: I am seriously going to mace the next person who pulls this 'blow past and then slow down in front of me, repeatedly' crap! Soooo annoying... Grrrrr.....
Tuesday 05/05: 45.74 miles, 2:41:33 (16.9 mph), Peter's short long loop. I went out with my coworkers yesterday and ate SO much delicious thai food that I developed a horrible stomach ache that was still with me in the morning. As a result, I was conveniently already awake early in the morning, but I had to go real easy on my ride. I just tried to keep the gears small and the cadence high, so I was pretty happy to still end up with a modest improvement in my ride time. I felt a little bit less barfy as time went on, but honestly, still feeling pretty bad now... I don't know if solid foods are in my future today.
Wednesday 05/06: Off, unplanned sleep-in-age. I guess the Wednesday easy ride is fairly uninspiring, as this is the second one I've missed...
Thursday 05/07: 43.1 miles, 3:04:11 (14.1 mph), Angeles Crest to Red Box. Booyah! Redbox is the new Clear Creek. This was an awesome ride, I was super pleased. My first day of climbing couldn't have been better. I guess I'm still experiencing the Miracle of Training on the bike. Legs felt a little rusty, but breathing was totally under control, and I didn't even need granny gear. Came through Clear Creek at about 1:38, feeling pretty good still, so stretched out my IT band a little bit and rode up to Red Box (2:08). Even felt pretty comfortable on the descent, which is extremely rare for me. Red box always used to feel so far away, but I was really excited about how easy it was, and at ~ 3 hours is a totally feasible weekday ride.
Friday 05/08: Off, shots. Ate half of a mint chocolate chip/brownie icecream sandwich.... mmmmmm.... morbidly obese.....
Saturday 05/09: 80.69 miles, 5:40:28 (14.2 mph), GMR/GRR to Baldy Village, back on Baseline to Encanto Park with Peter. Wow, okay... GMR is not as easy as the Angeles Crest. I stubbornly insisted on making in in the 39/25 gear combo, but I wasn't flying the way I was on Thursday. Still felt pretty good until we missed the foodstop at the GMR/GRR/East Fork intersection... after which I felt positively horrendous. I did not remember that GRR was so long. I had 2 bottles of water and a giant gu at Baldy Village, and felt kind of okay going home on Baseline, but that last stretch back home on California was not easy. The last 5 miles of GRR was the first point this year that I've gotten to that "completely vanquished" point on the bike. I'd forgotten what that feels like, and honestly wasn't super amused to be reminded... I wonder if that could have been avoided with a gu at the top of GMR, but I guess I'll have to wait until next week to find out. Glad to be done! Peter and I went to watch an awesome 1500 race by KB and some delicious food with Will and Ruby afterwards.
Training this week: 302 miles, 19:18:29
It turned out to be an interesting ride. Last time, I remember basically being exhausted to tears, but I had KB for company so the distance and time went by pretty quickly. This time, it was harder mentally than physically. My wish for the wind to calm down from yesterday... did NOT come true.
This ride made me think about how fickle one's perception of the passage of time can be. The wind was really brutal (worse than yesterday) on my way down to Seal Beach, and for some reason, going slowly feels mentally taxing, in some strange reversal of the laws of relativity... it felt as though the passage of time itself had slowed to a crawl. At one point, I realized that my face had gotten fixed into a grimace for the past hour or so, but then it also occurred to me that I really wasn't exerting myself more than normal, I was just going slower.
I felt really frustrated and demoralized arriving at my halfway point a good 10 minutes behind the split that I needed to achieve my performance goals (sub-6 hours, > 17 mph). Things were not looking good for me and this ride at this point...
In hindsight it was only really bad for about an hour, but that hour felt like the longest hour of the entire ride. In contrast, my mood and even my perception of my level of tiredness improved drastically once I turned around and was now going at a good clip with the wind behind me. I was pretty blissed out for a while before the wind shifted again and I had to cope with the headwind again on the last segment.
Thankfully by this point, I had a new motivator--I realized that my goals, once seemingly lost, were within reach, if I rode a strong last 15 miles. And once again, when one is racing the clock, the passage of time speeds up to warp speed. I actually did ride a strong last segment, and was really happy with how much fight was still in my legs at that stage, but it just wasn't enough to hang onto 17 mph. But hey, 1 of 2 goals isn't a complete disaster.
Sunday 05/03: 101 miles, 5:58:12 (16.9 mph), Seal Beach the long way via Encanto Park with a detour to the Rosemead Crossing to be safely over 100 miles. Felt a lot better at the end than I imagined that I would. I fought hard to keep my 17.0 mph average on the last 5 miles, but it just wasn't meant to be with the slight uphill and headwind. Felt kind of consterned, but I'll take it in stride. Overall, I was encouraged by how well I held up.
Monday 05/04: 31.4 miles, 1:54:05 (16.5 mph), 8 x RB laps. A nice morning shake out from yesterday. I was actually pretty certain that I would not wake up/be too tired to ride today, but miraculously, my eyes blinked open at 6:30, so I decided to get up and squeeze in a short ride. Felt pretty freakin' fantastic for having gone 100 miles the day before. A little bit tired, but not too much worse for the wear. However, mental note: I am seriously going to mace the next person who pulls this 'blow past and then slow down in front of me, repeatedly' crap! Soooo annoying... Grrrrr.....
Tuesday 05/05: 45.74 miles, 2:41:33 (16.9 mph), Peter's short long loop. I went out with my coworkers yesterday and ate SO much delicious thai food that I developed a horrible stomach ache that was still with me in the morning. As a result, I was conveniently already awake early in the morning, but I had to go real easy on my ride. I just tried to keep the gears small and the cadence high, so I was pretty happy to still end up with a modest improvement in my ride time. I felt a little bit less barfy as time went on, but honestly, still feeling pretty bad now... I don't know if solid foods are in my future today.
Wednesday 05/06: Off, unplanned sleep-in-age. I guess the Wednesday easy ride is fairly uninspiring, as this is the second one I've missed...
Thursday 05/07: 43.1 miles, 3:04:11 (14.1 mph), Angeles Crest to Red Box. Booyah! Redbox is the new Clear Creek. This was an awesome ride, I was super pleased. My first day of climbing couldn't have been better. I guess I'm still experiencing the Miracle of Training on the bike. Legs felt a little rusty, but breathing was totally under control, and I didn't even need granny gear. Came through Clear Creek at about 1:38, feeling pretty good still, so stretched out my IT band a little bit and rode up to Red Box (2:08). Even felt pretty comfortable on the descent, which is extremely rare for me. Red box always used to feel so far away, but I was really excited about how easy it was, and at ~ 3 hours is a totally feasible weekday ride.
Friday 05/08: Off, shots. Ate half of a mint chocolate chip/brownie icecream sandwich.... mmmmmm.... morbidly obese.....
Saturday 05/09: 80.69 miles, 5:40:28 (14.2 mph), GMR/GRR to Baldy Village, back on Baseline to Encanto Park with Peter. Wow, okay... GMR is not as easy as the Angeles Crest. I stubbornly insisted on making in in the 39/25 gear combo, but I wasn't flying the way I was on Thursday. Still felt pretty good until we missed the foodstop at the GMR/GRR/East Fork intersection... after which I felt positively horrendous. I did not remember that GRR was so long. I had 2 bottles of water and a giant gu at Baldy Village, and felt kind of okay going home on Baseline, but that last stretch back home on California was not easy. The last 5 miles of GRR was the first point this year that I've gotten to that "completely vanquished" point on the bike. I'd forgotten what that feels like, and honestly wasn't super amused to be reminded... I wonder if that could have been avoided with a gu at the top of GMR, but I guess I'll have to wait until next week to find out. Glad to be done! Peter and I went to watch an awesome 1500 race by KB and some delicious food with Will and Ruby afterwards.
Training this week: 302 miles, 19:18:29
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Week 4: Solitary (04/26/2009 - 05/02/2009)
It's not that I don't enjoy some good company on my rides and runs every now and then, but for the most part, the bulk of my training is solitary, and that's the way I like it. I don't know if it's because I made my first running breakthrough alone in the dreary Boston winter, or if it's because I'm forging my way as a cyclist alone on the River Trails in the wee hours of the morning... but I run/bike/think alone.
The hardest thing to adjust to with cycling is the formation of de-facto packs of strangers. There's usually low traffic in the morning, but on the weekends, there's a high probability of running into some sort of consterning riding situation. I think why this happens in cycling but not running has something to do with the draft effect and the pack mentality... which clearly I do not have.
Looking back, the riding buddy from last week was really fantastic because he was logical and serious and had the same agenda as me, ie. get to Seal Beach as fast as possible. The pulling/drafting ratio worked out really evenly, and I didn't feel too bad because I was working harder on the pulls than I normally would have alone.
Unfortunately most people are not orderly group riders. This weekend I saw and experienced a whole bunch of annoying scenarios... ranging from people who just latch on to you when you pass them and just draft and never pull, to people who speed up and slow down erratically, and people who are weirdly aggressive about getting in front but then slow down in front of you.
I'm not above sitting back and drafting in dire situations... but in normal circumstances, I really just want to make it on my own. Just go ahead or let me go... I've never had this problem with runners and haven't quite figured out exactly what the psychology is, or how to gracefully extricate myself from these situations.
Sunday 04/26: 78.3 miles, 4:34:33 (17.1 mph), Seal Beach the short way. A pretty awesome ride that went so smoothly it was like the opposite of last week--no snake, no crash, no crazy riding partners, no extreme dehydration. Much more even splits this time, 2:14 out and 2:20 back. Felt pretty good even at the end. I'm actually really excited about that 17.1 avg. It's a big jump from last week, and this time it was all on my own.
I actually then immediately drove to Irvine and rode 25 additional miles today, but they were with my friends from work, and probably too slow to be considered training. There were some nice big hills in there though, and some nice ocean views. We also had a really delicious frozen chocolate dipped banana as a snack in the middle and the most delicious Vietnamese food ever afterwards!
Monday 04/27: Off, semi-planned rest day. Felt like I should take it precautionarily, plus, I got home pretty late from my Sunday adventures, and probably would not have woken up on time. It seems like things are defaulting to the two off day system, but I feel like its worth it to do the higher volume on the weekends.
Tuesday 04/28: 44.2 miles, 2:52:34 (15.4 mph), 12 x RB laps plus bathroom detour. Ouch... my first really bad ride. I guess this was kind of a wake up call in terms of cumulative fitness. My legs actually didn't FEEL tired on Sunday or Monday, but they felt terrible today. In addition, I had cramping in both thighs and L calf... it took about 3 - 4 laps of crawling (think cycling equivalent of 10 minute miles) to finally get my legs loosened up enough to be able to put ANY power at all on the pedals. It was ugly. Things got progressively better after that, but I still felt "off" the entire ride, just tired and weak.
I've only abandoned one ride in my life, and the thought did cross my mind that I might have to consider that with this one if my legs didn't loosen up soon. It was pretty discouraging. It may have been prudent to cut this ride short anyways, but I ended up pedaling through all 12 laps in my frustration... and also to get my average at least over 15 mph. It just felt like such a letdown after a great ride on Sunday. I've decided to feel out tomorrow's shorter ride before making a decision about scaling back for the rest of the week. Bah, humbug!
Wednesday 04/29: Off, unexcused absence. I came home on Tuesday in a foul mood and went to bed immediately at 8:30 pm, yet somehow I still couldn't wake up at 6 am. Guiltily dozed for an hour until it became too late to do my ride, so I went back to sleep for another hour and didn't feel that much better when I did get up. Craptastic....what the hell is wrong with me?
Thursday 04/30: 46 miles, 2:43:35 (16.8 mph) Peter's Short Long Loop. It was emotionally critical for me to have a good ride today, and somehow I managed to pull it off. The inner tube that I patched with duct tape was auspiciously intact this morning, which I took to be a good sign. Nonetheless, I felt kind of weak and uneasy in the beginning, and the wind was tough on the middle section, but I felt really strong coming back from Encanto which was encouraging. I think I just have to chalk this week up to an unplanned down week and try not put too much stock in what happened.
Friday 05/01: Off, shots. Ate a whole bunch of weird things towards the end of the day and felt a little bit barfy. Really wish I had a scale.
Saturday 05/02: 63.6 miles, 3:38:40 (17.4 mph) Rosemead Crossing via Encanto Park with a detour to the base of the 39 on the way home. Felt really strong today, I guess I'm "well rested" thanks to the unplanned off day. I did feel like I quashed my demons from Tuesday though (fingers crossed!) It was kind of gloomy today, the winds were pretty brutal on the River Trail, really hoping that it won't be like this tomorrow for the long ride!
Training this week: 232 miles, 13:49:22
The hardest thing to adjust to with cycling is the formation of de-facto packs of strangers. There's usually low traffic in the morning, but on the weekends, there's a high probability of running into some sort of consterning riding situation. I think why this happens in cycling but not running has something to do with the draft effect and the pack mentality... which clearly I do not have.
Looking back, the riding buddy from last week was really fantastic because he was logical and serious and had the same agenda as me, ie. get to Seal Beach as fast as possible. The pulling/drafting ratio worked out really evenly, and I didn't feel too bad because I was working harder on the pulls than I normally would have alone.
Unfortunately most people are not orderly group riders. This weekend I saw and experienced a whole bunch of annoying scenarios... ranging from people who just latch on to you when you pass them and just draft and never pull, to people who speed up and slow down erratically, and people who are weirdly aggressive about getting in front but then slow down in front of you.
I'm not above sitting back and drafting in dire situations... but in normal circumstances, I really just want to make it on my own. Just go ahead or let me go... I've never had this problem with runners and haven't quite figured out exactly what the psychology is, or how to gracefully extricate myself from these situations.
Sunday 04/26: 78.3 miles, 4:34:33 (17.1 mph), Seal Beach the short way. A pretty awesome ride that went so smoothly it was like the opposite of last week--no snake, no crash, no crazy riding partners, no extreme dehydration. Much more even splits this time, 2:14 out and 2:20 back. Felt pretty good even at the end. I'm actually really excited about that 17.1 avg. It's a big jump from last week, and this time it was all on my own.
I actually then immediately drove to Irvine and rode 25 additional miles today, but they were with my friends from work, and probably too slow to be considered training. There were some nice big hills in there though, and some nice ocean views. We also had a really delicious frozen chocolate dipped banana as a snack in the middle and the most delicious Vietnamese food ever afterwards!
Monday 04/27: Off, semi-planned rest day. Felt like I should take it precautionarily, plus, I got home pretty late from my Sunday adventures, and probably would not have woken up on time. It seems like things are defaulting to the two off day system, but I feel like its worth it to do the higher volume on the weekends.
Tuesday 04/28: 44.2 miles, 2:52:34 (15.4 mph), 12 x RB laps plus bathroom detour. Ouch... my first really bad ride. I guess this was kind of a wake up call in terms of cumulative fitness. My legs actually didn't FEEL tired on Sunday or Monday, but they felt terrible today. In addition, I had cramping in both thighs and L calf... it took about 3 - 4 laps of crawling (think cycling equivalent of 10 minute miles) to finally get my legs loosened up enough to be able to put ANY power at all on the pedals. It was ugly. Things got progressively better after that, but I still felt "off" the entire ride, just tired and weak.
I've only abandoned one ride in my life, and the thought did cross my mind that I might have to consider that with this one if my legs didn't loosen up soon. It was pretty discouraging. It may have been prudent to cut this ride short anyways, but I ended up pedaling through all 12 laps in my frustration... and also to get my average at least over 15 mph. It just felt like such a letdown after a great ride on Sunday. I've decided to feel out tomorrow's shorter ride before making a decision about scaling back for the rest of the week. Bah, humbug!
Wednesday 04/29: Off, unexcused absence. I came home on Tuesday in a foul mood and went to bed immediately at 8:30 pm, yet somehow I still couldn't wake up at 6 am. Guiltily dozed for an hour until it became too late to do my ride, so I went back to sleep for another hour and didn't feel that much better when I did get up. Craptastic....what the hell is wrong with me?
Thursday 04/30: 46 miles, 2:43:35 (16.8 mph) Peter's Short Long Loop. It was emotionally critical for me to have a good ride today, and somehow I managed to pull it off. The inner tube that I patched with duct tape was auspiciously intact this morning, which I took to be a good sign. Nonetheless, I felt kind of weak and uneasy in the beginning, and the wind was tough on the middle section, but I felt really strong coming back from Encanto which was encouraging. I think I just have to chalk this week up to an unplanned down week and try not put too much stock in what happened.
Friday 05/01: Off, shots. Ate a whole bunch of weird things towards the end of the day and felt a little bit barfy. Really wish I had a scale.
Saturday 05/02: 63.6 miles, 3:38:40 (17.4 mph) Rosemead Crossing via Encanto Park with a detour to the base of the 39 on the way home. Felt really strong today, I guess I'm "well rested" thanks to the unplanned off day. I did feel like I quashed my demons from Tuesday though (fingers crossed!) It was kind of gloomy today, the winds were pretty brutal on the River Trail, really hoping that it won't be like this tomorrow for the long ride!
Training this week: 232 miles, 13:49:22
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Week 3: Clothing (04/19/2009 - 04/25/2009)
When the weather turned hot, I ransacked my room for my mesh cycling jersey and found that I had left it in Denver--calamity of the world! For a person who owns exactly 2 jerseys, of which exactly 1 is for warm weather, this actually is a calamity...
Not wanting to do my long ride in the heavier jersey, and feeling like I've adequately demonstrated my commitment to cycling frequently, I decided to make a new purchase.
As it turns out, however, women's cycling clothing is 1) ugly and/or 2) expensive. Lots of pastel colors... and patterns... eeeeeeeee. Fortunately, I found a nice mesh jersey that's mostly white, and decided that for $70 less than the black pair, I could deal with a light blue pair of shorts that were on sale. They do go with my bike, at least... and I suppose I am a girl.
Sunday 04/19: 78.7 miles, 4:47:34 (16.4 mph), Seal Beach the short way. Wow, this was an epic ride. Other than the fact that I suddenly rode 30 miles farther than my other rides, I also crashed at one of the gates, AND I saw the largest snake I've ever seen outside of a glass box... it was towards the end of my ride, so I just had my head down trying to get home as quickly as possible, so I almost rode over it. I screamed like a little girl, swerved and then pedaled furiously away, visions of it jumping up and sinking its fangs into my calf swirling in my head. It wasn't a cute little garden snake... it was a thick, dark, squiggly thing about as thick as my wrist. Glaghghalghalhga....
Otherwise, I took it easy for the first section up until the Rosemead crossing, after which I somehow acquired a riding buddy for the rest of the way down to Seal Beach. So, the 16.4 mph is probably a bit inflated, but I did my fair share of pulling. The plan was to just go easy and at my own pace, but somehow the competitive instincts just took over. I didn't want to be the weak link. We must have been averaging 21-23 mph... it made the time go by a LOT quicker. I arrived there in just over 2 hours.
Unfortunately, the other guy was going home to Seal Beach, vs. I still had the return journey left. I admit I felt a little bit defeated seeing that I still had 39 miles left to go... but I had a gu and felt better. It was hotter and windier on the way back, but I was still crunching along at a decent pace until I ran out of water, missed a crucial water fountain and the last 30 minutes quickly turned into the last 45 minutes. The last few miles were really brutal, but I made it!
Monday 04/20: Off, unexcused absence... the alarm went off, and my entire lower body felt not at all recovered... then I rolled out of bed and realized that my right knee, hip and shoulder were now all sore and bruised over from yesterday's fall. I decided to call it a rest day and go back to sleep. Then I woke up and felt really guilty for not having ridden.
Tuesday 04/21: 44.2 miles, 2:44:21 (16.1 mph), 12 x RB laps with short bathroom detour. I did my penance for yesterday's unplanned off day... 12 laps of the RB, 7 of them without my ipod (it died) ... sooooooo boring. I felt pretty good though, went real easy, but got a little ansty towards the end and did a few a little bit faster. It was really hot already by 8:30 as I was finishing up, but I felt good.
Wednesday 04/22: 35 miles (rounded in honor of Brain's engagement!), 2:04:47 (16.7 mph), Encanto Park to a little ways up the 39 and back the same way. Some better temperatures! A nice day and calm winds, I felt inspired to go just a little ways up the 39 but I had to cut myself off, to avoid becoming even more late for work. 2 hours feels so short now, I was starting to get the same guilty feeling that you get when you only run 5-6 miles and it is NOT a recovery day. I felt really strong today though, especially on the way back, and I'm slowly approaching some decent avg. mphs. Still a ways to go, but it's good to see the progress.
Thursday 04/23: 45.8 miles, 2:46:00 (16.5 mph), Peter's Short Long Loop. I was pretty encouraged that this was as fast as it was, because I felt pretty awful in the morning. My L calf was cramping, and I just felt tired and worn out. Had trouble waking up, and felt pretty droopy for the first hour or so. Started feeling better after going real easy for about 80 minutes. I had to revisit the place where I saw the giant snake... fortunately it wasn't there, but the baby rabbits were out in force--so cute! Then I ate a large quantity of fruit and salad before ruining it all with 1.5 donuts and some candy.
Friday 04/24: Off, shots. In addition to not riding, I ate a lot of cookie dough and icecream at work and felt kind of ill. Things are not looking good on the weight loss project... though since I don't have a functional scale, I don't really know what the damage is.
Saturday 04/25: 58 miles, 3:29:12 (16.6 mph), Rosemead crossing via Encanto park and back the same way. This was a perfectly fine ride, from the functional standpoint.... but for some reason there were just a lot of irritants. I was having really terrible luck with the traffic lights, cars were really pissing me off, and then I ran into this disgruntling riding situation on the River Trail, with 3 other people who were intent on riding RIGHT in front of me. With the winds picking up, I really didn't want their draft, so I kept trying to go around them... but every time I would get some distance, they would go around me and then slow down again.
Unfortunately, I just couldn't seem to achieve a breakaway, and eventually I tired myself out trying to attack and just let myself be dropped, which at least fixed the drafting situation. Nevertheless, I felt irate and crappy about myself about not being able to achieve the breakaway... and had to fight my instinct to tack on an extra 5 miles to soothe the inner demons. Instead, I sped off back home, full of irritated energy to propel me.
Training this week: 261.7 miles, 15:51:54
Not wanting to do my long ride in the heavier jersey, and feeling like I've adequately demonstrated my commitment to cycling frequently, I decided to make a new purchase.
As it turns out, however, women's cycling clothing is 1) ugly and/or 2) expensive. Lots of pastel colors... and patterns... eeeeeeeee. Fortunately, I found a nice mesh jersey that's mostly white, and decided that for $70 less than the black pair, I could deal with a light blue pair of shorts that were on sale. They do go with my bike, at least... and I suppose I am a girl.
Sunday 04/19: 78.7 miles, 4:47:34 (16.4 mph), Seal Beach the short way. Wow, this was an epic ride. Other than the fact that I suddenly rode 30 miles farther than my other rides, I also crashed at one of the gates, AND I saw the largest snake I've ever seen outside of a glass box... it was towards the end of my ride, so I just had my head down trying to get home as quickly as possible, so I almost rode over it. I screamed like a little girl, swerved and then pedaled furiously away, visions of it jumping up and sinking its fangs into my calf swirling in my head. It wasn't a cute little garden snake... it was a thick, dark, squiggly thing about as thick as my wrist. Glaghghalghalhga....
Otherwise, I took it easy for the first section up until the Rosemead crossing, after which I somehow acquired a riding buddy for the rest of the way down to Seal Beach. So, the 16.4 mph is probably a bit inflated, but I did my fair share of pulling. The plan was to just go easy and at my own pace, but somehow the competitive instincts just took over. I didn't want to be the weak link. We must have been averaging 21-23 mph... it made the time go by a LOT quicker. I arrived there in just over 2 hours.
Unfortunately, the other guy was going home to Seal Beach, vs. I still had the return journey left. I admit I felt a little bit defeated seeing that I still had 39 miles left to go... but I had a gu and felt better. It was hotter and windier on the way back, but I was still crunching along at a decent pace until I ran out of water, missed a crucial water fountain and the last 30 minutes quickly turned into the last 45 minutes. The last few miles were really brutal, but I made it!
Monday 04/20: Off, unexcused absence... the alarm went off, and my entire lower body felt not at all recovered... then I rolled out of bed and realized that my right knee, hip and shoulder were now all sore and bruised over from yesterday's fall. I decided to call it a rest day and go back to sleep. Then I woke up and felt really guilty for not having ridden.
Tuesday 04/21: 44.2 miles, 2:44:21 (16.1 mph), 12 x RB laps with short bathroom detour. I did my penance for yesterday's unplanned off day... 12 laps of the RB, 7 of them without my ipod (it died) ... sooooooo boring. I felt pretty good though, went real easy, but got a little ansty towards the end and did a few a little bit faster. It was really hot already by 8:30 as I was finishing up, but I felt good.
Wednesday 04/22: 35 miles (rounded in honor of Brain's engagement!), 2:04:47 (16.7 mph), Encanto Park to a little ways up the 39 and back the same way. Some better temperatures! A nice day and calm winds, I felt inspired to go just a little ways up the 39 but I had to cut myself off, to avoid becoming even more late for work. 2 hours feels so short now, I was starting to get the same guilty feeling that you get when you only run 5-6 miles and it is NOT a recovery day. I felt really strong today though, especially on the way back, and I'm slowly approaching some decent avg. mphs. Still a ways to go, but it's good to see the progress.
Thursday 04/23: 45.8 miles, 2:46:00 (16.5 mph), Peter's Short Long Loop. I was pretty encouraged that this was as fast as it was, because I felt pretty awful in the morning. My L calf was cramping, and I just felt tired and worn out. Had trouble waking up, and felt pretty droopy for the first hour or so. Started feeling better after going real easy for about 80 minutes. I had to revisit the place where I saw the giant snake... fortunately it wasn't there, but the baby rabbits were out in force--so cute! Then I ate a large quantity of fruit and salad before ruining it all with 1.5 donuts and some candy.
Friday 04/24: Off, shots. In addition to not riding, I ate a lot of cookie dough and icecream at work and felt kind of ill. Things are not looking good on the weight loss project... though since I don't have a functional scale, I don't really know what the damage is.
Saturday 04/25: 58 miles, 3:29:12 (16.6 mph), Rosemead crossing via Encanto park and back the same way. This was a perfectly fine ride, from the functional standpoint.... but for some reason there were just a lot of irritants. I was having really terrible luck with the traffic lights, cars were really pissing me off, and then I ran into this disgruntling riding situation on the River Trail, with 3 other people who were intent on riding RIGHT in front of me. With the winds picking up, I really didn't want their draft, so I kept trying to go around them... but every time I would get some distance, they would go around me and then slow down again.
Unfortunately, I just couldn't seem to achieve a breakaway, and eventually I tired myself out trying to attack and just let myself be dropped, which at least fixed the drafting situation. Nevertheless, I felt irate and crappy about myself about not being able to achieve the breakaway... and had to fight my instinct to tack on an extra 5 miles to soothe the inner demons. Instead, I sped off back home, full of irritated energy to propel me.
Training this week: 261.7 miles, 15:51:54
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