Training Log Archive: veinbuster

Apparently our furnace went on strike while we were away.

C • Uh oh 3

Missed the short bottom stair in the dark carrying a load of stuff down to the truck...and scraped my right foot in several places. Just bad enough I couldn’t punish it with a compression stocking on that leg for a long drive today. The result was significant swelling in the foot which ended up quite sore by the time we stoppped for dinner.

It might not be an outdoors day for our last on the beach: thunderstorms and 40km/hr winds.

One last tour of the beach with Mrs after the storm went out to see.

Murrels Inlet to Pawleys Island with Mrs. Sadly the Starbucks at the south end of the route was closed for renovations with a promise to reopen late March. I think they failed.

A good stretch of the ride was on a path through the woods. It was routed like a single track around trees, which was a bit odd for a paved path. A couple of kilometres by the beach homes and a short stretch on a path about 10m in from the highway.

Ride your age stage 10

6C and still air at sunrise so I started north wondering how much of the return in could get in before a promised 20km/hr headwind came up.

There were no traffic events to slow my pace for most of the first 20km. Just 1 badly managed construction zone that had me stopped for well over a minute and killed my target interval pace. It did give me a chance to unzip my vest to adjust for the sun’s warming. There were a few places where I had to be attentive for the rest of the outbound leg, but no real interruptions.

I did a residential loop at the north end to pick up the 2km I expected to be short and paused at a nice beach park 5km into the return to remove some layers. My somewhat optimistic Garmin showed 14C. Enough wind came up to blow me a bit in a few channeling locations, but it didn’t really impact my pace. There were more spots I had to slow down for traffic coming back. What really cost me was a long stop to get across Hwy 17 back to the beach at Surfside. My high heart rate was trying to drag and average interval speed up from 4.4km/hr.

I felt strong finishing off and would have overshot a bit, but I was expected back at the house. I did feel like I might be aging much of this year. Today I might blame it on the amount of time I spent fighting the wind. Regardless, by my rules: I’m not old yet. Job done.

Inlet/beach ride with J. South along the Inlet roads then back on the beach. She preferred the extra effort on the sand to the traffic on the road.

Ride your age stage 9 (I hope)

5C and 40km/hr winds to start the day so I wasn’t committed to riding my age when I started out this morning. The wind was lined up pretty much with the beach road so I started straight into it. It didn’t feel too bad, but the pace showed the effort and I found myself thinking I might settle for 40-45km to nudge my daily average up.

Looping back from the north was sweet though with a tailwind giving my a good 4 minutes off my headwind interval time. I took advantage of that for 12km and then took my lumps with 12 back into the wind. I decided that the tailwind would make my age doable as long as I didn’t inflict myself with another 12km headwind stretch. At the second north end turn around I had the psychological advantage of a net 7km tailwind to finish.

In finished with shorter loops that would maintain a net tailwind finish for my. I made one error in judgement crossing the inlet and giving myself the full force of the wind trying to push me into traffic. At least coming back across the Inlet, the wind only wanted to push me into the mucky tidal water. Back on the beach I finished with 4km into the wind and an easy 5km wind assisted run home.

Best tailwind interval was well under 10 minutes. Worst headwind interval was over 15 minutes, though it also included some traffic slowing.

I felt pretty good, but my quads are feeling the long headwind pushes. It is unusual for my leg muscles to show any wear after cycling. They are far from being the weak link in my performance.