After taking a very easy Friday (70 minute spin) I was back on the training wagon for the weekend.
Dennis and I started our Saturday with a 5500 meter swim. Nothing particularly fancy with a pattern of:
5 x 500
4 x 400
3 x 300
2 x 200
1 x 100
The 500s and 400s were a moderate mix of intensities. The 300s were a descending set. The 200 finished with an IM round for time. 100 c/d.
After finishing I looked up at the not-so-inviting weather in the mountains and debated whether or not I should head up high to run Magnolia Road. The previous night/day had given us rain in the valley with snow up high. I hoped the warm morning sun would have dried the road out so a couple hours after swimming I found myself up at 8200 feet on my favorite road.
The road was immediately damp (its dirt), but it did not have that deep soak that creates heavy mud. A couple miles later was a different story. I was slipping and sliding and the cars that passed me were running me into the deeper goop. Nevertheless, I kept it rolling as some dry(well, drier) relief consistently showed itself. The other issuse at hand were the cold temps, the demoralizing headwind and the vey intimidating clouds that seemed to be on the horizon in every direction.
The weather was really becoming a concern to me because if it started downpouring I could be a serious candidate for hyopthermia. I seemed to be barely producing enough heat without the rain. Fortunately, as I made my way back down the road it appeared that the weather would hold out long enough for me to finish my session. And amazingly enough I had not been sprayed with mud by any passing cars.
Until I was 3 miles from finishing. Then a truck gave me an uber spray.
Awesome. I needed that. Without that, it would have just been another easy, uneventful day on Magz.
I finished up the 17 mile run and I felt pretty damn wiped out with the long swim, long run combo. I headed back down to Btown and managed a one hour recovery spin before the sky started falling again.
Sunday was much like Saturday; only colder. I rolled out around 10:00a.m. with two jerseys, base layer, wind vest, knee warmers, arm warmers, skull cap, and booties. I still felt like I could rock some more clothes without being hot.
I had hoped for a 6 hour ride when I originally planned the week, but the weather was looking to be pretty rough. It was only two hours into the session when I found myself time trialing back south to avoid those black clouds. I made it back to Boulder after 3:30 of riding and I thought I could knock out some extra climbing so I headed over to Lee hill and upped my ride time to 4.5 hours plus before calling it a day in the rain. The session was shorter than I wanted, but I ended up getting more quality than I had probably planned. I logged over 2 hours of steady-state riding and another 45 minutes of hard climbing.
So that concludes my ten day training block. It ended up just shy of 50 hours which is a good thing. I find it to be better to fall just shy of your training goals. It allows you to occassionally exceed your racing goals.