Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Small world...

Hey everyone... a little late getting out this post, but better late than never. First, a training update: last Saturday and Sunday, I had a couple of nice, easy runs. Five miles on Saturday at around an 8:45 pace, and four miles on Sunday at an 8:40 pace. On Monday, I took advantage of the day off and put in an epic (for me) ride. Around 41 miles in 2:40. The first major hill showed up around 9 miles, and based upon my current level of fitness and the gearing on the bike (39x23), I decided to skirt the first hill. Over the next 15-20 miles, I got into a pretty good rhythm, maintaining a 17.5-19 mph pace on the flats and rollers that abound in the Tualatin River valley.

Then the trouble started... I had a T in the road where I could either take a left to a direct downhill toward home, or a right to a set of hills that I knew were going to be a challenge. I took the right, and the fun began almost immediately. A nice speedy downhill was quickly followed by two pretty significant hills that I forgot were there. How significant? Well, in cycling shoes, they each take about 5 minutes to walk up... the 39x23 was not happening. But after I got up the second hill, things got a lot better. The next big hill wasn't so big, and I was actually able to keep a good 90 rpm cadence up it. And when I crested the top, I immediately hit 40+ mph on the downhill - while riding the brakes, since this was an incredibly steep hill with lots of pucker factor. It gave me enough momentum to get up the next huge hill without pedaling at all. A slightly technical descent, and then a nice easy ~10 mile pedal home.

After all that fun, I took a rest day on Tuesday - and took the bike in to get a new rear cassette (12/27, so I can hopefully start to actually pedal up those hills). I'm definitely looking forward to trying some hills on Friday or sometime over this weekend. I also took another rest day today, since I had the weekly trip down to Arizona for work.

During my flight to Arizona, I got to chat with a coworker that I hadn't talked to for a while. Even though he's a close enough friend that he ushered at my wedding, and I knew he had run a marathon and a few halfs and 10ks over the last 10-15 years, he surprised me with the fact that he's completed a variety of tri's, including Wildflower. We had the opportunity to chat about training strategies, refueling (Gatorade, Gu and salt tablets, oh my!) and the wonders of the "natural break" during and/or after the cycling leg. It was great to be able to chat with someone who had accomplished the same goals that I'm hoping to this summer, especially when I had no idea he'd enjoyed the 6-7 hours of a half-Ironman. Small world indeed.

On a completely unrelated topic, I did have to brag a little bit. Last Friday, my wife got up at 4:45am to get in her morning workout - and Jonathan Roche, the inventor of the No Excuses Workout program, took note on his Twitter account:


Kinda cool to see your spouse recognized for hard work and dedication in the cyber world. :)

The plan for the next few days is get in a little base training Thursday and Friday - hopefully a run Thursday morning and an easy ride Friday morning. Then we'll see how the first long run since the marathon goes, with 10-12 planned for either Saturday or Sunday. Definitely looking forward to testing out the legs and see if the running endurance is still there 4 weeks after Eugene!

1 comment:

  1. Nice work guys - I am getting to either PT or the gym now too! It feels good to finally be able to move a little!

    ReplyDelete