T-Minus 20 Weeks

T-Minus 20 weeks until the Grand Traverse Run/Bike Race and I’ve completed my first real week of training. The last several weeks I have been doing a bit of base-building and trying to get back into a solid workout routine.

My goal for each week is to run 3-4 days, bike 3-4 days and hit the gym to lift some weights three days a week. That has proven to be quite a juggling act, especially given our bipolar spring weather in Colorado. Life can also throw a wrench or two in the training schedule.

Thankfully, the weather last week was perfect for training and I managed to get in four days of road biking and three days of running. My strength training goals were not perfect. However, I did manage to get two out of three days of strength training in.

Another wrench in the works has been the time change. I am traditionally a morning workout person. Normally, I am up at 4am to get to the gym and then run. Over the winter, I became completely fed up with running the dark. Once the mornings were getting lighter, I enjoyed my morning runs so much better. Then, the time change.

Lately, I have been getting my runs and bike rides in after work. The problem with that has been trouble sleeping at night which makes it much harder to get up in the mornings to get to the gym. It probably is a little bit of an excuse, but sleep during all of this training is a very important part of the schedule.

So, what have I have doing to make sure I get on a solid track and stay there? I have been reaching out to as many people as I can in order to find support and training buddies. My goal is to get back to morning runs, even on the trails. The problem has been I do not feel very comfortable running trails in the dark alone. Thankfully, I may have a least one person to do some morning weekday trail runs with me now.

The next step is to find some cycling buddies. I have been reaching out to some local groups and may have found a few people to road bike and mountain bike with. Slowly, I think my support group will grow. I feel a good support group is going to be one of the keys to keep me on track.

This week, I also had the opportunity to practice my bike inner tube changing skills. While I was airing up my back tire before my Sunday morning ride, I broke the stem which sent air rushing out of my bike tire. Thankfully, YouTube has plenty of videos to help refresh my memory on changing out the inner tube. After some frustration, a few sighs (maybe a couple swear words) and about 30 minutes, I had the inner tube changed, tire back on the bike, aired up and headed out for my ride.

An exciting development is I ordered my first full suspension mountain bike which should be here later in the week. I am already dreaming of all the miles of fun tol be had with this new bike. I went with the Canyon WMN Neuron 6.0 AL. It may not be the fanciest of mountain bikes, but until my skills improve, I think this will do just fine.

Training for next week may not be ideal as our bipolar Colorado spring appears to be acting up again. Hopefully, we will only have one day of wet (maybe snowy) weather and biking or running indoors this week will not be required. I can tolerate a lot, but running on a treadmill or riding a stationary bike are a couple of things I have a hard time handling.

Each week will certainly bring new challenges, new lessons, new failures and, hopefully, more triumphs. I have trained for enough races in my life to know that not everything goes according to plan and I will need to accommodate for life’s ups and downs and the ups and downs of training and physiological adaptations. Being flexible is about the only way I think I will be able to get through this happy and healthy and truly enjoy my training and the races.

Last week’s training specifics are below:

Monday

Strength Training

Legs/Booty

Road Bike Ride

Distance - 16.1 miles

Time - 1:10:43

Elevation Gain - 909 feet

Tuesday

Yoga for Cyclists

Road Run

Distance - 6.25 miles

Time - 59:19

Elevation Gain - 466 feet

Wednesday

Yoga for the psoas

Road Bike Ride

Distance - 16.1 miles

Time - 1:14:00

Elevation Gain - 945 feet

Thursday

Strength Training

Arms/Delts/Abs

Trail Run

Distance - 4.75 miles

Time - 59:05

Elevation Gain - 1,027 feet

Friday

Road Bike Ride

Distance - 16.1 miles

Time - 1:09:49

Elevation Gain - 896 feet

Saturday

Trail Run

Distance - 10.1 miles

Time - 1:55:37

Elevation Gain - 1,476 feet

Sunday

Road Bike Ride

Distance - 23.87 miles

Time - 2:03:00

Elevation Gain - 1,457