Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!

Three Semi-Normal Weeks

>> Wednesday, July 29, 2026

The last 3 full weeks have been pretty normal after a more random June. Here's what they look like:

This calendar starts with a "weird" day as we were still in Portland for Henry's fencing tournament. (Here's a post about a tempo run on the treadmill at the hotel, and here's a bit about the long run that's on the 6th on the calendar above.) That first week was just missing some leg exercises on Monday as we were still out west. The rest of that week was pretty normal: I had 19 hours of training, but some good legs on Monday would have put me over 21 hours, which is a decent week.

The 2nd week was a bit easier on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday as I raced the Raspberry Run 1 Mile on Sunday (the RED on the calendar). So just an easier and shorter ride on Thursday, and NO ride on Saturday. So that week was 20.5 hours of training - a bit lower than a "good" week because of taking it easy leading up to the race.

And then last week (the 3rd week) was the best week. And that's even with skipping my long run (because it would have been the day after the race and I know I need to let my legs rest after that). So I started the week with an easy-ish post-race swim, and then had THREE GOOD BIKE RIDES as highlighted in my last post. That ended up being a week with 23.5 hours of training, which is one of my biggest this year - at quick glance, it was my 3rd biggest week all year, behind 2 other decent "bike weeks" in May and June (it's the bigger bike weeks that really help those totals).

The last 3 weeks of "intensity" minutes. Notice the slow climb
at the end of the middle week as I was resting up more for the race.

Again, the last 3 weeks were decent.

Oh, and in looking back through my Garmin app, I noticed my "floors" climbed (nothing I ever really look at) for the last 4 weeks, and you can REALLY TELL what 2 days we were hiking at Mount Rainier and then hiking up Multnomah Falls the following day:

Bike Bike Week!

>> Monday, July 27, 2026

Last week was a big week in the saddle, but it was a little more special than that. Here's a quick look at the week, with bike workouts in green:

It was an unusual week because the Raspberry Run 1 Mile was on Sunday the 19th (the day before that week started), so I didn't start last week with a long run. I rested my legs. So I just biked to the gym, went for a swim, and biked home (that's the 2 bike workouts on Monday, totaling less than 5 miles).

What makes last week's bike numbers special is that I biked 121.7 miles, but that included 3 SOLID and ACTUAL bike workouts! In the past, many of my big bike weeks have been a lot of errands and/or commuting on my bike. But this was actual rides. Tuesday's was a moderate ride being it was just 2 days post-race, Thursday's ride was 4x5 mile intervals, and Saturday's ride was a 25 mile tempo with extra at the end to get over 40 miles on the day.

For example, let's look at 2 big weeks from exactly 1 year ago: I had back-to-back weeks of 103 and 112 miles. That was 13 bike "workouts" over those 2 weeks, but only 4 of those were on my tri bike. And of those 4, only 2 were hard, 1 was "moderate," and 1 was easy. I had 2 hard and 1 moderate ride in 1 week last week, not over 2 weeks with lots of other easier rides. It's easy to stack up 100+ mile weeks when you're running errands on your bike, but not actually "working out." (Yes, there's a lot to be said for just "being fit" and using your bike... I'm not against that. I'm just noting that it *is* different when looking at total miles. Were the bike rides just getting around town? Or were they hard training workouts? Those 2 different kinds of miles feel different.)

TUESDAY I just biked moderately for about 35 miles:

I searched out some hills, but didn't ride hard.

THURSDAY I hit the Greenway for 4x5 mile intervals (on the stretch between split #4 and split #6 on this map):

And then a longer cooldown to splits #9 and #10 to get over 40 miles on the day.

Intervals highlighted in red.

Those intervals felt the best they have all year, and my 5-mile averages were 21.3 mph, 22.3 mph, 21.5 mph, and 22.9 mph. Nothing amazing, but I haven't had speeds quite that high this year.

SATURDAY I hit the Mendota Bridge detour to get to Big Rivers, and I did 25 miles hard at the start of a 41+ mile ride:

Hard through split #5, also hitting hills like 4 days prior.

This week will be smaller again, but then I hope to have another soild "saddle week" next week!

Weight-Loss Long Run!

>> Saturday, July 25, 2026

My last "normal" long run was 12 days ago... I skipped my run earlier this week because of the Raspberry Run 1 Mile. It was a bit sticky, and I knew it was going to be a sweaty one... but hopefully NOT as bad as my last long run at the end of June where my heart rate SPIKED.

I happened to weigh myself before the run. I was 160.0 lbs.

Then I drank a lot of water before my run. And I stopped for 3 drinks during my run. All-in-all, I figure that I drank about 1.5+ lbs of water (that would be drinking 6 oz of water each time, and that's being conservative as it was probably more). Here's the pace chart of my run, and you can see the 3 times I got a drink during my run (in red), along with when I turned around (in blue):

Because it was warm, I only did 5 "harder" miles instead of my normal 6, but I was OK with that. Here's my route with half-mile splits, and I ran harder at split 5 and then eased up at split 16 (and then actually walked for a moment to split 17):

After weighing 160.0 lbs before my run and drinking 1.5 to 2 lbs of water during my run (meaning I should be 161.5 to 162.0 lbs), I weighed 156.4 lbs after my run. I had sweated out 5+ lbs of fluid during my run!!

But I felt fine. Again, it wasn't nearly as sticky and horrible as the run a few weeks ago. Ready for some cooler weather!! We had a few cooler days this week, but now it's back to being hot.