19 June 2009

Workout recap + Tour de Rock report

Whoa, I'm so far behind on recapping my workouts that I'm just going to do the previous week.

6/13 Tour de Rock--I had signed up for the 30-50 mile option when I thought James was going to ride with me but ended up doing the 62 mile route since he's still bruised and sore from getting hit. Awesome, awesome group ride with my riding partners from Searcy +another guy from the area (he doesn't train with us). My nutrition and hydration was perfect and I felt great the entire ride. During the first 40 miles we were doing between 19-22 mph but Gary started feeling rough after that point so we slowed down a bit. We ended up averaging 18.1 mph, not bad considering that Gary said the last 14 miles were purgatory for him. My other training partner Mike did the entire ride in Converse tennies--he's getting clipless pedals for Father's Day. I told him we'll never keep up when he switches over because he's such a strong rider already.

From about 20 miles on we were in a much larger group so that helped with the drafting and speed. It freaked me out though when I started to fall back after pulling for a little while and there were all these other cyclists that had fallen in with us. Very cool! Another cyclist joked with me about me not realizing that I was pulling 30 other riders.

This has been my longest ride of the year and I still felt great afterwards so I'm hoping by next fall that I'll be able to knock at least an hour off of my Big Dam Bridge century time from last year.

Sunday--4.25 miles in 39:13. This should have been a 9 mile long run but legs were a little tired from the ride the day before so I'd decided before I left the house that it would be a 3-5 mile run.

Monday--rest day

Tuesday--4.15 miles in 39:17 at Breaux Bridge, LA. Nice route, parked at the Pilot and followed the sidewalks all the way into the downtown area. James likes to stand on the banks of rivers with a lot of history to them, I like to check out the downtowns of places when I run if at all possible. Overslept so by the time I drove to Breaux Bridge it was very warm and humid, I was starting to drag by the time I got back to the fuel stop

Wednesday--5.06 miles in 47:18 at Cotulla, TX. Overslept again so yet another hot, humid, miserable run + very windy. Had to take a water/walk break at mile 3.6.

Thursday--on the way home so went to the health club for the first time in months for a speed workout. 5.05 miles on the treadmill with intervals. 2 x 1600 at 8:06 pace, with 800 meter recovery, 1 x 800 at 8:06. I'd had a twisted coffee-toffee frosty for a treat the day before and paid for it during this workout. When will I learn that ice-cream is not my friend?

I have a 4 miler on today's schedule but my legs are a little sore and I'm retaining water like crazy from the heat and humidity so will do a weights workout and maybe 30 minutes on the trainer before leaving for Russellville (Abigail's birthday party!). I'm up 2 pounds from last week due to the water retention, ugh. Aggravating because last week I was only 6/10 of a pound from reaching my goal weight.

Before I forget, I received a nice compliment this week from another lady driver while in Louisiana. I was backing into a spot next to a Werner truck after fueling at the Love's in Iowa and the woman who drove team with her husband got out and told me she wished she could back up like that :-). To be honest though, with the route I've run for the past 3.75 years, my backing skills are getting kind of rusty and that wasn't a particularly hard spot to hit but it wasn't a straight-line back either so it was gratifying to have everything fall into place with only 1 little adjustment and esp. nice to be complimented on it.

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