Week 9: Fail! (05/31/2009 - 06/06/2009)

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