A PR Week of Bike Rides!

I had 3 great rides last week!

My boys were gone for a few days to spend some time with cousins, so that let me get out for 2 decent rides earlier in the week:

TUESDAY was a ride down the Greenway through the detour and back, averaging 19.9 mph. I posted about the minor crash that scratched my boobs at the end of the ride last week.

THURSDAY was a nice hilly ride along the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, averging 20.0 mph:

After a quick potty stop south of 494 along Hwy 13.

And then my wife took the boys for the day on Saturday as I had a ton of class prep to do. It's sort of last minute, but I'm teaching at another university this fall, and I had to build a class from scratch. And the first day is today. So I banged through some stuff, felt good about it, and left for a ride (before coming back and working a whole lot more).

As I was heading out, I realized that I went 31 miles Tuesday and 31 miles on Thursday. I knew if I went 38 miles on this ride, I could hit 100 miles for the week! So for the hell of it, I headed for the Gateway Trail. I hadn't been down that for years, as it's kind of a pain to get to - it was the place for our long rides while ironman training as there were lots of nice hills at the other end of the trail by Stillwater and Square Lake. But to make it worthwhile for us to ride on the Gateway, we need to plan a long ride.

First time on the Gateway in over 9 years!! (And the last time I was on it,
I only rode to mile 1, and that part of the trail doesn't even exist any more!)

I told myself I'd stop to snap some photos over some of the bridges on the way back, but I never did. By that point, I just wanted to be done, so I was just riding hard. I forgot how many intersections there are early on when you're on the Gateway. And how crappy the roads are around the State Capitol to get to the Gateway. So I felt like I hadn't been missing anything over these last 9 years of Gateway-less rides. I finished 38.1 miles with a 19.5 average (I was at 19.8 when I got of the Gateway, and then lost a bit over the last 8 miles of city riding).

Hot epsom salt bath at home. (Note the healing scrape on my knee from Tuesday's embarrassment.)


Super unflattering selfie. I didn't splash any water on my
face - that's all sweat from sitting in the hot bath. My legs needed it.

So I officially hit 100.42 miles of riding on the week:

Tues in purple, Thurs in red, Sat in green. Seems less dramatic all on 1 map.
Two of the 3 got me out of the 494/694 loop, which is always nice!

(Techincally, Tuesday's COULD have hit 494 off the left edge of the map had I not turned back on a different trail before turning around.)

I looked back to see how long it had been since I've had a week like that. Obviously, I biked more than when ironman training in 2007. But my training logs were all paper (not online) until the end of 2009, so I don't have solid numbers from that long ago. Over the last 12+ years, I think I only hit 100 miles ONCE in a week. (And that was 100 miles exactly, so this past week of 100.42 would have been more.) Here's what I found:

• In this post from August 2008, I noted going 100 miles in a week. That's the last triple digit week. I was training for a last minute half ironman. I did 40 miles early in the week, and then a long 60 mile ride with my wife that weekend. (In that 60 miler, I hit my speed record which still stands: 49.3 mph down a hill in Stillwater.)

• In March 2009, I nearly hit 100 miles over the course of a few days (but different weeks). I had just gotten "Goldilocks" (the bike I had before my current bike), and I took her out for 37.5 miles at the end of one week, and then 60 miles (as part of a bike/run brick) a few days later early the next week. So that was 97.5 miles over the course of a few days. This was training for my last "long distance" triathlon: my 3rd (and last) half ironman in April of 2009.

My madien voyage on Goldilocks in the spring of 09.

• In April 2010, I went for 2 long rides a few days a part. I posted about it here. With those 2 rides and another short one in the middle, I hit 86.64 miles that week:

• My most recent ride that was longer than this past weekend's ride of 38.1 miles was 5.5 years ago. In April of 2015, I rode my bike to class, did a longer tempo ride between classes, and rode home. My daily total (not just one ride) was 38.55 miles. See more in this post. That 38.5 mile "day" 5.5 years ago was the longest since a 43 miler with my NEW GARMIN (the same one I'm still wearing) on July 4th of 2012. My Garmin was my first Father's Day present.

• My 3 more recent weeks that came close to 100 miles are:

Sept 2015: 78 miles (over 4 rides)


April 2016: 94 miles (over 4 rides).
This was coming back from my suspected stress fracture.


May 2018: 79 miles

So I can say with a fair amount of certainty that this was my biggest week on my bike since racing Ironman Wisconsin in September of 2007!

At first, I had the thought "and I'm not even training for anything," but THAT'S what made it possible. I'd never feel right riding that much if I was training for something, as I'd be putting in more shorter, harder speed work, and being on the bike that long would make me fear for an injury.

Anyway, all that biking felt like a nice "redemption" after starting the week with a crappy run.