A Week of Vacation Workouts (with a Bike PR)

I haven't posted any photos yet (unless you follow me on Instagram), but we were with family at a cabin up in Alexandria last week. I got in some nice bike rides while we were up there! Here's what my training log looked like for last week:

I'll break it down day-by-day ignoring the orange (which was strength work that I fit in when/how I could).

• MONDAY: rest day. The Raspberry Run 1 Mile was the day before, so I took it easy to let my legs rest a little. (I have more pics from that race to share shortly.) Monday is usually my "long run" day, so this week would be short on running mileage.

• TUESDAY: long ride. I didn't really have a plan, but I just hit the trail just 1/4 mile from our cabin and rode. I decided to go a bit harder for 30 miles and then ease up for the rest.

Heading out: about 7 miles from home.


Looking at the trail near my turn-around...


... and looking back the other way.


Riding back through corn and bean fields, as well as round bales.


A selfie with Big Ole in Alexandria.


Eiffel's working good after being fixed a SECOND time recently.


From Alex through 3 small towns and back.


Two Garmin PRs on this ride!

I held 21.6 mph for the first 30 miles (in 1:23:13) and then let my overall average slip down to 21.0 mph over the final 13 miles as I just took it easy. It's a SUPER FLAT trail, so it was fast.

• WEDNESDAY: easy 6 mile run. It was on the same flat trail, but I did a mile of grassy mountain bike trails in the middle to mix it up a little:

Random MTB loops in the middle.

Note above that that run had 180 feet of elevation change, and about 110 of those came from the 1 mile on the MTB trails. So the other 5 miles had a total of 70 feet of elevation change. FLAT.

(And my Garmin shows 5.80 miles because I forgot I still had it set to 1/4 mile splits from the Raspberry Run 1 Mile which was my run before this one. So I stopped and reset my Garmin and started a new run after having ran 0.27 miles, so I had to add that in.)

Also, that afternoon I FINALLY put my new cleats on some new bike shoes I bought from my brother-in-law. My cleats broke back in October, and I got some a few months later. But I couldn't get my old cleats out as everything was wore down so badly. So I just didn't bother for a long time. But then my brother-in-law sold me his old shoes that he hardly used, so I had no excuse now:

Old cleats. You can see I got 2 screws out MONTHS ago, but then stalled out.


My broken left cleat.


Beautiful.


Ready to go!

I tested them out that evening, and they were great. Ready to ride the next morning!

• THURSDAY: 3x5 mile intervals on the bike. I warmed up for 5 miles and did 3 intervals after that.

Another nice day out on the trail.


Back-and-forth on the same section of trail, with extra off the trail in my cool-down.
(My warm-up was a different "bike workout" as I had forgot that my Garmin was set to
4 mile splits instead of 5 mile, so I stopped it and reset it like on the run the daty before.)

With 3 minutes of easy riding between, here's what my 3 intervals looked like:

- 13:46, 22.6 mph halfway, 21.8 mph overall

- 12:26, 24.3 mph halfway, 24.1 mph overall

- 14:00, 21.7 mph halfway, 21.4 mph overall

Into the wind for #1 and #3, and with the wind for #2. And each interval had its lowest point in the middle, so it was uphill to every finish.

3 intervals near the start.


Easier to see when looking at heart rate.


And there you see it's uphill to the finish of every interval. Damn.

• FRIDAY: easy run. I didn't run on the trail this time - it's not that I was getting sick of how flat it was, but more because I was concerned I wasn't "mixing up" my stride enough because it was SO flat that it made me want to find at least a FEW hills. Instead of 70 feet of elevation change, this 6 miler had 233 feet, which was more like "normal" for me:

Around and through Arrowwood Resort just to snoop on it.

• SATURDAY: shorter, moderate effort ride. This was the ride where I ran into WWE Superstar Brock Lesnar. I took off knowing I wanted to ride 22-25 miles, and I just decided to keep it a bit harder through 20 miles (but NOT "tempo" effort), then go easier. I was up to 20.9 mph and figured I'd be up to 21.0 mph by mile 20, but I ran into Brock and eased up around mile 19.

Pre-sunrise lake views pre-ride.


Smoky sunrise around mile 6.


Turning around 2 towns later in Brandon (around mile 11).


A few raindrops back at the cabin as the sun breaks through.


Out-and-back with an extra bit off the trail as a cool down.


The dip around the 56 min mark was riding with Brock.

We left for home about an hour after that ride! I had everything packed (that I could) the night before, so I finished my ride, loaded the bikes (my bike and my boys's bikes that we'd brought), woke up the boys, took our food from the fridge, and got the boys ready to head home about an hour or 2 before the rest of my family left (we had to be back for fencing lessons).

• SUNDAY: rest day! I just did some normal core work.

All week, I had "normal" workouts on the "normal" days (except for the skipped long run on Monday because of the Raspberry Run 1 Mile the day before), but the strength workouts were just adjusted to be what I could do away from my bands, balance ball, and weights - all of which didn't make the trip. Tues and Thurs were short upper body days doing what I could, and even doing pull-ups from the rafters in the garage. Mon, Wed, and Fri I did core and legs however I could. And then I was back home for a decent upper body routine at home in the afternoon.

All the biking last week totaled 104.47 miles! That's a weekly PR since Ironman training in 2007!! Two years ago, I had 98 miles over 3 rides, and then I got in another easy hour on the trainer for 6:05 in the saddle over 7 days (5:05 outside). The year before, I hit 100.42 miles over a week. So I beat those DISTANCES this past week, but I had more saddle time 2 years ago. Last week, I had 5:01 in the saddle on all outdoor rides. (And actually, between mountain biking with the boys and slower "commuter bike" riding when my bike was in the shop for 6 weeks, I've been at 5+ hours in the saddle for 3 out of the last 4 weeks! That's BIG bike time, and I should AGAIN be breaking a monthly bike distance PR [post-IM training] that I just set 2 months ago! Which is CRAZY because I didn't have my tri bike to start the month, and then my bike was back in the shop for another issue mid-month!)