Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!

Vacation Workouts (Including a GREAT Tempo Run)

>> Thursday, August 13, 2026

I posted about a huge week in the saddle that happened last week (as we were in a rented cabin with family "up north"), and here are more details on that week:

• MON: long run. This was one of the 2 biggest "tests" for my vacation workouts: I had done a hilly run 5 days before that made my always injured calf unhappy, but then it held up 3 days before on a track workout. Things felt fine for this long run! It was on a super flat trail, and my speed was good: I did the middle "faster" 6 miles of this 12 mile run at 6:07.5 pace (as I posted about last weekend). Decent start to vacation workouts!

• TUES: long ride and good upper body. This is the first time this has happened during our "up north" trips, but I got to use the local YMCA up there because we are now members in the Twin Cities. So I actually had good upper body days on Tuesday and Thursday! And I took my son Henry along with my niece and nephew on Tuesday. And I wrote about the 46 mile ride in this post.

(Oh, and note the PURPLE on the screenshot of my week above. I was having a few calf twinges near the end of my ride, so I noted that. It ended up being nothing, but I cut the ride a little shorter than I wanted to just to make sure I didn't hurt something.)

• WED: easy run. I also got in some decent core and some PT leg exercises as well. Not as good as "normal," but NICE for being on vacation!

• THURS: interval ride and good upper body. Again, I posted about my bike workouts in this post. I stretched out a 4x5 mile interval workout to over 40 miles by just biking around town at the end.

• FRIDAY: descending tempo run. I was getting back on the TC 10 Mile training plan from Coach Jen from 2010 to see if I could survive a few more of her workouts. This one called for 4 descending miles (meaning they get faster as I go). I was aware that I did this workout in 2010 in 23:55 because I REALLY focused on the "descend" (6:22, 6:01, 5:54, and 5:38) and was not trained in knowing what sort of split I was running at any given moment. And I did it in 23:39 in 2024 with tighter splits (6:08, 5:59, 5:49, and 5:42). I went out planning to break 24:00, but knowing I couldn't hit 2024's times (I set 3 PRs that spring, and nearly set a PR at the TC 10 Mile that fall... my best running year ever!).

I felt like I was starting off strong, and sure enough, my first half mile was 2:53! I eased up a LITTLE to still try to break 6:00 for the first mile, and I did that with a 3:04. From that point onward, I sort of used my half-mile splits as a way to make sure I was speeding up over each mile - I was NOT trying to speed up each HALF mile. I was hashed at mile 3, but I kept up the perfect descend for all 4 tempo miles! Here were my splits:

Half-mile splits:
2:53, 3:04, 2:57, 2:56, 2:54, 2:57, 2:54, 2:51 = 23:30 (5:52.50 pace)

Mile splits:
5:58.5, 5:53.5, 5:51.3, 5:46.0

I was THRILLED with that! I'm not in better shape than in 2024... it's just that I ran this PERFECTLY and was also running on a super flat trail. Still, it was a boost in my mood!

Tempo from half-mile split #2, out to #6, and then back.

I don't believe that HR chart.

• SAT: moderate ride, and upper body at home. I got up early for a ride before we headed home. That was THREE rides of 40+ miles each for the week!! And then a slightly quicker upper body workout at home in the early evening.

• SUN: rest and core. Happy with a good week.

Steps were a bit lower than average (fewer walks, very few errands, etc.)...

... but intensity minutes were back up again!
(Like the big week of biking 3 weeks ago too!)

Intensity minutes have been all over the place this summer,
but the rides last week got me back on the higher side again.

So just over 21 hours of training while being away from home all week was GREAT!! I was not planning on getting in all that strength time, but it all worked out. (Not to mention how thrilled I was with getting in 130 miles in the saddle!) I had another "Coach Jen" long run the following day, and I'll be back with info on that in a few days. TC 10 Mile training is going as good as it can be right now!!

Semi-Wordless Wednesday: WCCO and the Women's Tri

>> Wednesday, August 12, 2026

This past weekend was the YWCA Women's Triathlon, and my niece completed the "super sprint" to finish her first triathlon!

My sister-in-law and her daughter pre-race!

The only "issue" was that it was a little annoying to see WCCO's coverage of it keep popping up on my feed. In case you're wondering why I'm annoyed, see this comment at the bottom:

Could have picked from MANY other photos.

Then WCCO was "suggested for me" on Instagram with the same image:

Kinda lame. I want to believe it was an innocent mistake by 'CCO.

Related (and funnier): in this post of Liberty Triathlon race photos from 16 years ago, there are a few photos of a guy with a backwards helmet. It happens. Especially after getting disoriented in the swim and sprinting up the shore.

Three 40+ Mile Rides in One Week!

>> Monday, August 10, 2026

Last week was another big bike week!! I posted a few weeks back about a week of 121 miles in the saddle which was great, but last week, I hit 130+ miles!

130.9 miles on my bike!

We were in Alexandria MN with my family, and therefore I skipped my Tuesday swim and biked instead. And I also had more time (as we were on vacation), so I could bike for longer. In fact, I was back home on my bike before everyone was up on those 3 days. Most of my family was still passed out each time I got back, so I wasn't missing out on family time either.

• TUESDAY was a long ride with the first 35 at tempo pace. That's a long tempo ride. And it wasn't SUPER hard because I was going so far. It was like a 90% tempo effort and not like a 98% effort. It was also just over 50 degrees when I took off before sunrise, so I was wearing LONG SLEEVES for the first time in months:

Long sleeves under my jersey.

Long boring trail. Actually mentally hard to do a long ride because it's soooo boring.

Pretty colors as the sun rises.

Three deer butts! I scared some deer on the way back. Saw a total of 8 deer on this ride.

From Alex to Garfield to Brandon to Evansville to Melby
and back (with some extra around Alex as a cooldown).

Kinda downhill on the way out.

Notice there's not a big drop in speed at mile 35 (when I stopped biking hard) because I was with the wind at that point. The most noticeable part of my speed graph is speeding up with the wind at my turn-around at mile 20.7. It was NOT a fast ride: I was at 18.7 mph at mile 15 before deciding to work a little harder, got it up to 19.2 mph at the turnaround, and then hit 20.0 mph before the end of my tempo effort at mile 35.

• THURSDAY was 4x5 mile efforts. This was to be my "hard" ride! I got a photo of my bike with Big Ole during my warm-up:

Big Ole might have a new hair color soon!

There wasn't much wind, so my intervals were pretty consistent. Here's what they looked like (also noting my average speed half way through):

#1: 13:50, 21.7 mph (21.8 mph half way, just down from 22.0 before that)

#2: 13:27, 22.3 mph (22.5 half way)

#3: 13:23, 22.4 mph (23.7 half way)

#4: 13:16, 22.6 mph (22.9 half way)

I worked hard to descend those! The lowest part of each interval was in the middle, so I had a small, uphill "false flat" to the finish of all 4 intervals:

The "dips" in elevation were the middle of each of the intervals.
(Note how the dips fit together in the middle of the faster paces for the intervals.)

Intervals between the 3 and 6 on that map. Cooldown to the east.

Also note that I got in a few miles that afternoon while biking with Charlie to one of the culverts that goes under the trail. He caught a bass right off the trail:

Literally standing on the bike trail to get this photo!

• SATURDAY was just a moderate ride. Nothing fancy! I had jsut done a hard run the day before, so I didn't want to hurt myself. I also took off on this ride REALLY EARLY, so it was quite dark on the road to get to the bike trail:

Something like 30-40 minutes before sunrise. The days are getting shorter!!

The phone makes the trail look brighter, but the "speed blur" lets you know it was darker!

The sun was finally up on my way back! Long shadow selfie with corn.

Out-and-back for 30 miles, but then extra on the highway around Alex...

... I have to keep some of these roads in mind for the future!

Some parts of the trail are getting pretty rough, so more time on nice highways might be more of my jam in the future.

I don't think I've EVER had 3 rides all over 40 miles in a week before!! And Thursday and Saturday from the week before both had 33+ mile rides, so I logged 199.25 miles in 10 days!!

Intervals and a Long Run

>> Saturday, August 08, 2026

After some heel pain after a hilly run, I wasn't sure if my next runs would go OK, but it held up for 6x800 with 2:00 rest on the track. It was drizzling (FINALLY SOME RAIN during that heat wave two weeks ago) and I wasn't sure if my body was going to hold up, so I just did some basic 800s.

Wet track. Early and a bit dark yet.

My first one was normally slow, and then I was happy that #2 and #3 were getting faster. I couldn't hold on to the descend, but I was happy I ran them well and ran out of steam perfectly in the final few:

1:22 + 1:20 = 2:42.6
1:19 + 1:19 = 2:38.4
1:19 + 1:18 = 2:37.4 (happy I was descending yet!)
1:19 + 1:19 = 2:38.9 (lost the descend)
1:19 + 1:19 = 2:39.2
1:18 + 1:20 = 2:38.9

Average: 2:39.23 / 800

So my heel held up, but it wasn't 100%. I was glad it made it through the intervals, but didn't know if it would hold up on upcoming workouts.

My heel was still a bit sore and achy all weekend, but I tried to take it easy and baby my calf. We went up to a rented cabin a few hours north of the cities with family, and I stretched and rolled when I could. I headed out on a long run 3 days after those intervals and I wasn't sure if my calf would hold up. So instead of doing 11+ miles as running "out" for 5.5 and "back" for 5.5 (where if something hurt half-way through, I'd be stuck 5 miles from home), I first looped around a neighborhood before jumping on the paved trail 3 miles into my run ready to start some harder miles.

Sun coming up on my warm-up.

The paved trail is nice, but boring.

Half-mile splits. I got in a 2.5 mile warm-up as a loop to the
east, then a hard out-and-back from splits 5 through 17.

Pretty obviously, the line between split #11 and split #19 was the nice, flat, boring trail.

My leg held up! And my speed was decent!! I didn't have a major descend in my splits like I often do at home, so I was happy I kept it harder from the start. My half-mile splits were decently consistent: 3:06, 3:09, 3:04, 3:04, 3:05, 3:08, 3:02, 3:01, 2:58, 3:03, 3:00, 2:59 = 36:45 for 6 miles (6:07.5 pace).