Training Log Archive: veinbuster

Day 1 soloflex and free weights

Sufferfest: fight club

A bit of a search and burn session.

6 minute tempo at 6.5/10
4 x 4 minute TT at 7/10 + 2:30 climb at 8/10
Lots of attacks throughout - 8 in the last interval. Attacks 10/10 targeting 300 watts with leg speed

Power: avg-196, max-325

The risks of enjoying the outdoors hit home last night. A family member of a good friend didn't make it home from a New Years Eve camping trip. He was cave camping 10 miles out of cell range and was hit by a wayward bullet.

Details are sketchy and it isn't really my story to tell, but as someone who easily spends 200 hours outside alone most years, it did give me pause beyond the immediate sadness for a friend's family.

C • Tragic 2

Clear blue dawn.

I dressed one step colder than what I would try for snowshoeing and it turned out just about right, in part because at -6C it was a bit cooler than I expected. There were some clear spots on the north loop, but it was mostly hard packed snow with the odd stretch of ice sheets. 3 runners and 1 dog outbound so the path was pretty quiet.

Up at the bridge that has been under construction for years, someone had taken down the barricade blocking the unfinished section across the river. I opted to navigate the opening and come back on the much less travelled east side. This was a tough slog through a narrow, deep trail that had my pedals catch the surface frequently. I had to get off and walk around an elderly woman with her dog - she was sorry, so I chatted a bit telling her she had as much right to be there as I did.

On the first of the two creek crossing a fattie had broken through and looked to have dropped in water up to its axel. I opted to walk a different spot that I could jump over. The second crossing had a nice line to a 20cm wide bridge so I just shot across and surprised myself by having the right gear to climb the slippery slope on the far side.

Lots of dogs and runners on the groomed path and three skaters on the rink coming home.

Day 3 soloflex

I'm not sure how much of this I will formalize into targets, but I'm thinking for next year I'd like to hit:
6,000 km on the bikes
5 x 100+km days
10 x 64+km rides
150km without a bike
Get paddling again - might have been long enough that I forgot my bad habits and could benefit from lessons
Properly train for a cold weather event as long as four hours

Edit: I'd also like to set a new Garmin max for either elevation or distance on a ride, maybe both on the same one.

C • A fine set of goals! 2

Sufferfest: the hunted

This was a bit of a struggle by the end today. I held the high power markers but faded a bit too much on the tempo recovery (280 with 230 recovery).

5 minute solo break away
20 minute climb
10 minute run to finish

Power: avg-206, max-325

I was authorized to snow shoe before shoveling so went out to 7-8cm of wet snow. The woods out back had noticeably less snow on the ground because it was still stuck in the trees. The going was pretty easy today because the melt and freeze of the older snow made a pretty solid base. For the most part I just had to step through the most recent snow.

I started by looking for a way across the eastern branch of the river other than the railway crossing and couldn't find one. Since I know the weekday rail schedule, I followed the tracks south a bit to the bigger branch of the river to see if there was a way across - again just the railway bridge, though coming back I saw a candidate hole between trees down a steep hill. I'll come at it from the other direction another day.

Once across the bigger bit of river I went into the golf course, expecting to find some cross country tracks, but it was a giant unused field except for a few spots near houses. I did a fairly extensive search for a river crossing there and while I crossed creeks of various sizes, I didn't see a way across the main flow of the river.

I found I was a bit over dressed, but today I had a couple of zippers I could undo. The light singlet base layer wicked nicely so the T shirt over it was soaked, but the base only slightly damp - so I just changed T shirts before shoveling (a 45 minute session after stopping the timer). I'll start to cycle through my lighter shells to sort out what works best for these moderate temperatures.

I walked a few minutes on the cart path, and quickly observed that it was a nice thick (2cm or so) sheet of ice under the new snow. I'd want different cleats if I had to go far on that, but today I just stuck to the rough and fairways.

Day 2 soloflex and free weights