Seventy Five

Last weekend at Lake San Antonio was a great success. We had great weather and lots of fun with the Team conquering the Wildflower Long Course. I spent the whole day organizing and supporting. So this week, while the Team rested, I knew I had to get in some mileage. I'm not doing an Ironman, but Wildflower is only 6 weeks away.

Saturday morning I met up with "the girls" at Nargis' parents' house in Sunnyvale. Missy wanted 70 miles, and Nargis wanted hills. We decided to go for distance rather than hills and I suggested the Uvas ride.

The ride starts completely flat as we ride south and the house-prices go up... Sunnyvale... Cupertino... Saratoga... Los Gatos... A quick right turn ended the flat stage of the ride as we climbed up Shannon. The wildflowers are blooming and the deer are out all over, so there was plenty to look at. The ride through San Jose isn't too interesting, but soon enough we got to McKean road... and the wind.

From the moment we hit McKean there was a headwind. It was ridiculous. 14 miles of headwind with no letup. It's amazing to see the difference in terrain between the Calero area and the Uvas area. You come down the hill and the hills are covered with oak trees, green grass, and yellow and orange wildflowers.

At one point we talked about shortening the ride to 60, but we decided to ride to the lake... which was much further than I remembered. So once we got there, we just did the ride as planned. The lake was lower than I've ever seen it. About 15 feet lower than normal. The race there will be interesting.

When we swung around the south end of the lake the headwind became a tailwind. Around the Chesbro dam I remembered an old biker bar where I stopped once to get water on a hot day. There's not much left there... the place burned down and was nothing but charred wood and half a roof.

Back on McKean I was loving the tailwind. It's great to pull 31-32 mph on the flats, but the downside is that it ends quickly. Back through San Jose and over Shannon was getting a bit harder. Somewhere between Los Gatos and Saratoga, I cracked. My legs gave up. It didn't last too long, but for the last five miles, I was pretty spent. No surprise... my longest ride of the year so far was only 52 miles, so this was a big jump. 74.5 miles (we'll round to 75) with abou 3800 feet of climbing. Given the headwind, I feel like it was more like 6800... but GPS doesn't lie!

Earlier in the week I had a couple of good runs on the trail at work. Tuesday we headed out on a nice cool cloudy day. Down the trail a mile or so it started sprinkling. By the time we finished it was POURING down rain and we were soaking wet. Thursday's run was a bit longer, but hotter. I've joined the GPS gang and I find that running with a constant pace monitor seems to make me run faster. Whatever works!

A Good Week

It's been a while since I posted anything here... So much for keeping myself honest!

Anyway, this week's weather has been fantastic, so I've made extra-sure to get in as much training as I can.

I started the week with a spin class on Monday at lunch. This class is hard enough as it is, but add to the fact that I had just ridden Hwy 9 the day before. My legs were T - I - R - E - D. Monday finished off with the IronTeam dinner at the Coop... Including that cake - with the super-sugar-frosting-flowers. So much for the calories burned in spin class!

Tuesday was my run-at-rancho day uh... I mean my off day. When the alarm went off, snooze came several times. With an early meeting there would be no running. It's ok, my legs needed a break.

Wednesday was planned to be a spin day, followed by track in the evening. Around 11:30, Eric came by my cube and asked if I wanted to run. After looking outside at the shining sun, I ditched spin and went for a quick 3-miler with Eric and YuanYuan. The trail was crowded and we started off at a decent 10:30 pace according to Eric's Garmin. At the turn around I picked it up a bit, and with about 1/2 mile left I really pushed it. By the end my HR was over 185 and I was running about an 8:15 pace. Sometimes it just feels good. That evening, Dan took the lead on the track workout. I wasn't going to run, but then joined in the warmup - only about 1.5 miles. I could really feel my legs from the lunch run. After warmup, I joined in the strength training part of the workout - pushups, squats, crunches, planks, balance drills, plus those crazy stretch-cord things!

Bright and early Thursday morning, I hit Rancho. I was shooting for 7:00, but got there around 7:15 (only 2 snoozes). Still enough time to do the 5 miler to the hairpin and back. This was an LSD run, so I started pretty easy, my legs were a little tired. By the turnaround I was feeling pretty good (the downhill didn't hurt either). I ran the "back" 2 min/mile faster than the "out." Yes, for those keeping track, this was run #3 in 24 hours. But I wasn't done yet! Thursday night I joined the Wildflower team's track practice. I dropped the MVHS keys off for coach Steve and joined in on the run. Alternating hard/easy intervals. Total was about 3.5 miles. A good workout, and a chance to catch up with some friends from the run team as well as old friends from the way-back tri team.

To sum up Wed-Thurs, I ran 4 times for a total of about 13 miles including two high-intensity workouts. So I was dragging a bit this morning when I hit FIT for my weekly session with Jimmy. He took a little pity on me (he says he lightened the weight but I'm not so sure). Using 30 lb dumbells I did 5 sets of (8 Romanian Deadlifts, 8 cleans, 8 squats, and 8 push-presses). Then followed that with some situps, back extensions, and seated rows.

I thought I was done for the week. But then Eric says "you want to go to the gym at lunch?" I almost said no, but then I remembered Resolution #2. After digging around in my car to find some goggles, I went for my second pool swim since Coeur d'Alene (yes, that was June 25th). The good news is I still remember how to swim. The bad news is I've lost a LOT of endurance and speed. Guess I better do that more often.

Well, the week is over... all that's left is the weekend. I'm going to sleep in a bit on Saturday (since Sunday is an 8AM start at Gunderson which will feel like 7AM), but I have a "fun little ride" planned. Stay Tuned.