This was week 3 of the training plan that I’ve been using from LW Coaching. I’m using the 7 day Stage race PR plan which is honestly a pretty intense plan that I know I don’t really have time for. I reached out to Lynda and got some guidance on how to “time crunch” the plan which has been really helpful. The plan does still call for some pretty long rides and some back to back long rides, which are really tough to pull off right now. As of late it’s been really difficult to do a lot of daytime riding on the weekends for a few reasons not the least of which being that the kids are a lot of fun right now. The older one is 2 1/2 and is very much coming into her own and she’s still napping in the afternoon which tends to be in the range of 1-4 pm, now she doesn’t sleep that long but that is the general range of “naptime”. So trying to squeeze in a longer, in the order of 5-6 hours, ride on the weekend means giving up a big chunk of time with them (and the wife doesn’t tend to love it since that tends to eat into her time).
In order to find an alternative I’ve been using some vacation/personal time and my company’s flex time policy to make these rides happen during what would normally be work hours on Thursday’s or Friday’s. Basically I start work really early most of the time and in reality if I were going to work a 40 hour work week I’d only be working 3-4 days a week. So on weeks when I’m trying to get in a longer ride I’ll try to do it during the week. So far this has worked out OK but not great, work has been really busy lately so trying to get out during normal hours has been tough. My long rides have been a little shorter than I’ve been trying for since I can’t seem to get out of the office but still longer than they would be.
The long rides for week 3 were scheduled to be back to back 6 hour rides with the first one being more hilly/intense and the 2nd being a constant lower intensity ride. I knew well ahead of time pulling off both of these was not going to happen which I was ok with. I’d just do what I could and that would be well enough. The plan was to get out Friday around noon and be back by 5 then get up Saturday morning for a few hours.
Friday…I didn’t end up getting out of the house until almost 12:45 largely due to my own self sabotaging ways and inability to walk away from questions. With the way the weather had been lately including lots of freezing and thawing and the almost 55 degrees outside I decided that I should stay off the trails and do a more allroad kind of ride. I wanted to climb and the parkway was closed so that seemed like a good destination. I’d climb up Cathey’s Creek, go out Indian Creek to 215, up 215, get on the parkway, and come back down 276, if the timing looked good I’d come back on 477.
The ride up 215 is always a tough one, its long, seemingly relentless, and did I mention long? Fortunately I had a game to play on the way up, survey the most common ditch beer can. Recently there’s been some discussion as to the most common roadside beer can and if craft beer was starting to show up in the roadside ditches. On this ride there was no question, Natural light was the clear favorite, now maybe it was an isolated instance? As there were two different cases of natural light on the way, maybe this was just one group being excessively wasteful. Either way before I knew it I was at the top, and freezing. That 55 degrees at home (2200′) did not translate well to the top of the parkway at 5500′.
Once I passed that first gate I was greeted by snow patches, stiff cold winds, and ice. At this point I was past the point of turning around and just had to deal with it. Generally on the parkway you get some pretty good descents and can hold some good speed. It seemed like everytime I got in a good groove I’d come across a snowy patch. It felt like it was taking forever and I had not really brought enough clothes for riding in 30 degrees. I was still in shorts and pretty light gloves. Fortunately I brought a vest and some arm warmers so I wasn’t totally frozen but mostly. I made it back to the house in plenty of time to be changed and back with the family before I said I would and my ride was a pretty good one. This ride at this length and intensity helped me remember one thing, I haven’t been keeping up with any off bike core training…
Saturday, I didn’t get up quite as early as I’d hoped and actually waffled a little bit on riding as it was really cold and the weather later that day was supposed to be gorgeous. BUT I remembered that Katie has been trying to get out more often and would probably want to ride. So I got all my stuff on and headed out, trying to keep the efforts a little lower today I headed out towards Dupont. The climbs aren’t as long or as steep this way and it’s easier to go and not commit to huge loops. I was greeted by some great early morning light and a sweet sunrise, I tried to take some pictures but my fingers/hands were so numb I couldn’t make it happen. I need to work on my allroad glove set up what I had on was not even close to adequate.
Later that day when Katie went out for her ride I actually hopped on the trainer for a little while to get a little more saddle time, I know it wasn’t the long consistent ride I was going for but that’s not how it goes all the time. All and all I got two pretty good days of riding/training in and still had a pretty amazing weekend with the family. As I get into the meat of the training plan I will probably try and put a little more emphasis on hitting these workout a bit more closely but you’ve got to pick your battles and priorities
