Training Log Archive: veinbuster

The rain moved out a few hours earlier than expected, but wet roads and 40km/hr wind didn’t seem bike friendly so I tried another beach walk/jog. I targeted 4km this time and started with a lazy run in soft sand. After 500m I moved to harder sand and swapped walk and run to the 2km turn around.

Even with new, tight compression on both legs, it doesn’t seem like running is in the cards for me. On the return I just did a brisk walk with an average heart rate 7 bpm lower than outbound. I did notice on the return that my outbound tracks rarely showed a heel print where I had run, which I think is good. Well, except in the soft sand where my heel was about a cm deep and the toe push close to 2cm.

C • Sand running 2

Mrs got up to see the sunrise on the beach rather than look at my photos of it. There was some unusual water sculpting in the sand. Instagrams has sample since I don’t have a convenient way for my phone to get them to my website to post here.

Inlet marsh ride with Mrs. I tried to find roads to cover the Garden City portion of the inlet. I paused Garmin for a walk out on one of the viewing piers, but forgot to turn it off until I got the bikes upstairs - I subtracted about 7 minutes guessing how long that took.

The morning beach.


From one of the walkouts into the marsh looking into the marsh at high tide

And looking back to the shore

C • Nice photos! 2

Ride your age stage 8

3C was a bit chill for the kit I brought, but the air was still so I ventured out at dawn. My lower back was a bit sore and I was pretty sure that if I stayed local, I would wimp out early. To prevent that, I headed to the north end of the Myrtle Beach ocean route.

It took about half an hour to get over the chill. The tour into the sun at 13km was a treat after the trees had mostly blocked it. Then the hotels blocked it until another turn to the sun at 24km. After that the sun was mostly visible. I had maintained a fairly relaxed pace at my endurance heart rate and felt pretty good at the turn around. At about 35km I noticed the wind pick up a bit to about 25km/hr, but it was mostly a cross wind so only an issue in a few places where it channeled. At least until I got to the highway stretch where it periodically tried to push me into traffic.

As I set up to make a left off of the highway, I was very aware of the news clip I had seen this morning of an autonomous mode Uber killing a cyclist (in Arizona I think). It gave a new flavour to being Uber cautious getting back to the beach. It took me about 3x as long as usual to get a break in traffic that I was comfortable with.

Low tide beach walk with Mrs.

Ride your age stage 7
A tale of two winds
or
Between the storms

I wasn’t really expecting to do more than a token ride today with thunderstorms in the morning and more scheduled for the afternoon. The morning ones were fierce. By noon is was drying up reasonably and the sun came out so I put on some sun screen and went out in 20C.

The weather channel said 25-35km/hr west winds, so I started into them. With a kilometre it was clear that the nominal winds for the area didn’t hold on the beach. I actually had a nice tailwind most of the way to the northern turn around. Looping back I wondered if there was a spot inland where the ocean breeze and the weather wind would balance out. If they did, it would probably mean riding on the highway, which I wasn’t really interested in doing.

By 33km the sun was gone and at 38km there was a big temperature drop. That made me suspicious of when the next rain would come so I decided to try to guess at how to beat the storm. I also started to notice stops where the two winds traded who had the power. Near the marshland, the west wind won out. Where the dunes were low or missing, the clean won out. It was a crap shoot who won in the turbulent spots where big buildings channeled the wind.

I passed the house at 46km knowing I would need to ride another 8km into the wind to hit my age so I picked a northern turn around that would give me 8km in fairly predictable wind and let me finish with the wind at my back. The first rain showed at 58km, 1/2 km before looping home with a tailwind - of course I would finish my age being this close. I got enough to cover my sun glasses, but not enough to really feel wet. 1/2 on from the house I saw what looked like a wall of rain about a kilometre away. I beat that and finished with what I considered perfect timing.

C • Nice timing 3