Training Log Archive: veinbuster

Mrs. wanted to try an elliptical in the brand new fitness centre in our hotel so I went on a machine be beside her. She couldn't make herself go slow enough to avoid running her heart rate up so bailed early.

Just the essentials.
Apparently we have lots of beach walking to squeeze in.

The ultimate beach walk.

If I was a runner, this is where my morning run would be: Surfside Beach pier to Garden City pier. About 10km starting from anywhere to get to both and back again.

It was interesting to see how much the beach was reshaped at low tide since March. I expect most of it was due to last months hurricane.

Left foot is mostly back to normal so a proper ride seemed in order. 7C with a decent headwind at 25-30 km/hr to start so I burned over 800 calories outbound. I felt pretty good so wandered around the golf community for a bit where I got a bit of shelter from the wind. At 1000 calories I took a pause to advise Mrs. that I hadn't fallen in a ditch - I was approach her alarm time and had no chance of getting back until an hour after it went off.

Switched into finger less gloves, unzipped an upper layer and had a snack during the 5 minute pause then headed back with the wind at my back. Heart rate stayed close to the outbound level with the higher cadence the tailwind allowed. I stopped to pick up bagels at 60km and crossed the highway with them along with an 80+ year old woman taking home her groceries. She was bolder than I was starting across the road, but I blocked for her anyway assuming I would be more visible than her 5 ft and maybe 95 lbs.

While I had felt that I was approaching the limit on a traditional bike at about 55km, the pause at the bagel shop was quite refreshing and I felt like I could have gone out for a couple more hours if I had someone along to pace me. A beautiful day and I felt pretty strong.

Nutrition: 1 Huma gel - much easier going down than traditional gels with about twice the volume for the same calories. The chia made it a bit gritty, but I quite liked it.
1 pack of chews - bad for my teeth, but easy to get out of my pocket and eat on the move
1 tailwind

An interesting morning to be in the US.

Short ride squeezed in between taking Mrs. for breakfast and taking her to an early movie for $5.

I stayed on the peninsula today to avoid highway traffic. The headwind versus tailwind differential was 3km/hr. There was quite a bit of construction material going up and down the beach road. The last of the smashed stuff was being picked up from the side of the road when I finished up yesterday so now there is room to put new beams, pipes, walls, etc.

The extreme south of the beach road still has enough sand that grip with my road tires is near impossible, so I'll skip the last kilometre for the rest of the week.

The Mugs Game

I wasn't sure about this ride. Over the weekend a combination of tape, compression placement, walking and stair climbing resulted in a blister on my left foot. Unfortunately I didn't notice it until it burst and I tore the top layer of skin off removing the tape. In hindsight, there was a signal that I might have a blister that I just brushed off. So...about 1.5 sq cm off skin missing on the ball of my foot, right about where my compression is meant to start. Pretty small really, but given how slowly small wounds heal on me I was apprehensive about making it worse.

Careful application of ointment, gauze, tape. Careful compression selection and placement, then lock into my shoes and head out to see how it feels. It was sunny and a pleasant 8C so I headed north to have the option of a longer ride. Pressure on the bottom of my feet in these shoes is well distributed so when I got to the 4km turn I opted to carry on north and loop back in an hour as long as things continued to feel ok. The limit was just because I wasn't sure if I would notice a problem before it was too late. The plan was to keep my heart rate in the 130s which should ensure I wasn't pushing to hard. Oh...I flipped the rear to free wheel so I could pause periodically.

My internal alarm called the hour at 61 minutes, but the turn to my favourite stretch of beach was in sight so I continued along that making the turn at 1:07. It turns out that the slight headwind I hadn't registered outbound gave enough of a boost that the same effort going back made up a good chunk of the extra time outbound.

Average heart rate was 140 both out and back, so I was a bit over the target effort, but it felt like a nice relaxed ride. I'll check the foot a bit later, but it feels like no harm was done.