Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!

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.