Frozen 15 Mile Ride

My car stopped working on 10 days ago (Friday, Dec 12th), and it was towed to the dealership. After a week of wondering why they weren't working on it (knowing so because of an app on my phone showing my car was locked the whole time) even though they said they'd get to it right away, they found an easy answer that they admitted should have been taken care of right away instead of sitting there for 5 extra days. (I was told it was ready 30 mins before they closed on Friday, Dec 19th.) My wife worked this past weekend, so I decided to bike out to the dealership on Saturday afternoon to get my car. It was 15 degrees with 20 mph winds. Yikes.

I grabbed my mountain bike (this is NOT road bike weather!) and figured out the best possible way to get there being I usually use 3 different freeways and highways when going by car. I planned a route and layered up:

The ski mask ended up over my nose after a few feet because it got cold!

The first 4-5 miles on Summit Ave looked this this, with clear traffic lanes but packed snow in the bike lane:

Not slushy, so no problem for an old mountain bike.

I knew the end of Summit Ave was closed (technically it's John Ireland Blvd at that point, and they have taken down a bridge to rebuild it), so I turned on Western to get across I94. But then behind the State Capitol, another bridge was closed that I didn't know about. However, I could sneak around the barrier and walk my bike across (as I couldn't keep it upright in this few inches of uneven snow):

Looking back the way I had come.

I went along the cemetary to Arlington, crossed I35E, and got on the Gateway Trail. It hadn't been plowed from the 1/2 inch of snow we got 2 days before, but it HAD been plowed from the heavier snow from 2 weeks ago, so that was great:

Again, easy riding on my mountain bike!

I turned onto the Bruce Vento trail to head north. The wind was out of the NW, so I was nicely "pushed" down Summit Ave, but the few miles heading north to Arlington was wind IN MY FACE as well as all of the Bruce Vento Trail. I was getting chilly. I took the hand warmers out of my gloves and added them to my shoes (where I already had toe warmers and 2 THICK pairs of socks).

A sweet abandoned go kart / buggy / thingy next to a PRETTY CLEAR Bruce Vento Trail.

I went on that trail until it ended. Near the end, I crossed a bridge over a more major road (before I694), and it was GLARE ICE. I took one pedal stroke and my back wheel spun out. I tried to coast the rest of the way, but the wind blew my back wheel out from under me, and I landed on my feet with my left pedal scraping the trail. That was my only time "crashing," and I landed on my feet without my hand even touching the ground. I "penguin walked" the rest of the way over the bridge, and continued biking.

I finished the last mile or so along the side of Hwy 61:

FAST cars, but very clear and wide shoulders. And there's my destination on the right!

The guys at the dealership were impressed. I just wanted my car so I could turn on the seat warmer and go home. (I often turn it on low for a little while, but this time I had it on high for the ENTIRE drive home.)

15 miles in 15 degree weather with a 20 mph wind.


Uphill for the last half. D'oh. And notice my speed dip at 30 mins
where I had to jog my bike across the snow-covered bridge.


"Strained" the day before the ride (a hard treadmill
workout - more on that shortly), but otherwise a lot of "maintaining."

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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.

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Workouts Coming Back From My Injury

I FINALLY feel like I'm starting to get back into a bit of a rhythm. My heel is far from 100%, but it's been letting me build up some endurance. After a lack-luster March, the first 10 days of April looked like this:

Lets go sport-by-sport.

SWIM:

Yes, only 2 swims over those 10 days. That's not great. I had a (slow) tempo solo-swim on the 6th, and then a good butt-kicking swim with Julia on the 8th. I did 3,100 with Julia, and around 1,100 of that was pulling! Here's Julia and I post-swim:

BIKE:

I'm REALLY happy with my biking over the last 10 days! The first 10 day of April contained my first 3 outdoor rides!

- The first ride was my favorite 15.5 mile loop that I posted about last Monday.
- The second ride was a LONG ride (for me, for this time of year) of 34 miles on Friday.
- The third ride was that same 15.5 mile loop, only I did some intervals.

On Friday, I wanted to go long. So I just wandered around St. Paul and nearby suburbs. I crossed the Mississippi on I35. The flooding was CRAZY. Here's the yacht club under water from the bridge:

Close-up

Riding one-handed while going uphill across a high bridge with a strong side-wind while taking a photo? Yeah, maybe I won't do that again...

Then I hit the Big River Trail. Here's more flooding - I USUALLY like to ride down that road that goes under the RR bridge:

Before continuing down the trail


Ice and snow on the trail under the 494 bridge - I had to dismount to cross


Still snow along Big River Trail, but I was in shorts

So I made it all the way to Pilot Knob and 494 before turning around and heading back. I crossed through downtown St. Paul, and worked my way over to the start of the Gateway Trail (just to make sure the trail had survived the winter). I rode only to mile 1, and then turned around:

BONK TIME!!! I turned into a slight (oh so slight) wind, and I realized I was done. I was slightly overdoing it for this time of year. I was running out of water (I started with nearly 70 oz - yes SEVENTY OUNCES - and apparently that only lasts me about 30 miles), I had already ate the 2 gels I had brought, and I was going to bonk with 7 miles left. Oops.

It was a good ass-kicking. I needed that. I ended up logging 34.22 miles that looked like this:

Notice the little A, B, C, D, and E on that map? Those correspond with these averages:

- A: Downhill for a few miles, then up over the bridge, then down along the river: 18.7 mph average

- B: Long, gentle uphill, crossed icy lump (seen in the photo), and uphill to my turn-around at Pilot Knob Rd (far southern point): 18.0 mph average

- C: Down gentle downhill, up steep hill, across bridge, and down Shepard Trail to Downtown St. Paul: 18.3 mph average

- D: Realizing I'm bonking at the northern most part of the ride, after a lot of street riding: 17.8 mph average

- E: More street riding after serious bonk, up the hill by the Cathedral: 17.3 mph average

- Down Summit Ave to home: 17.2 mph average for the 34.22 mile ride. Ouch. Ego blow. But a necessary one.

Kermit (my cat) licked the salt off my arm once I got home:

Arm hair styled by Kermit

I didn't know the best way to handle that major bonk. So I had a recovery drink with 5 grams of protein, and then I had a big protein shake with 58 grams of protein. That was a lot of protein. But I think it did the trick.

Then yesterday, I did some short intervals on a 15.5 mile ride. When I started out, my legs felt GREAT, so I think all the protein 2 days before had helped! I warmed up for a few minutes, and then did 5 x 3:00 intervals with 3:00 of easy-to-moderate spinning between. I tried to keep track of what I did:

- 0.97 miles (into the wind).
- 1.08 miles (ending on better roads).
- 1.13 miles (lots of technical turns going under 35 at high speeds).
- 1.20 miles (starting at the bottom of the hill just before Randolf, ending just past Smith Bridge with a long, slow downhill).
- 0.63 miles (starting by Smith, ending about 0:40 past the top of Ramsey Hill).

That means I averaged 24 mph during my "farthest" interval, and I averaged under 13 mph during my "shortest" interval (over half that interval was going up a steep hill in my granny gear).

I REALLY liked this workout! I snapped a photo once I got into the house when I was all sweaty:

Just after I took this photo, some sweat dripped into both of my eyes. Suck-tastic. But it was GREAT to be sweaty in short sleeves and bike shorts!!!

So 65 miles on the bike in just over a week is nice for me (and for this time of the year). I need to keep that up for a few weeks!

RUN:

Yes, all these runs were pretty short. But I'm trying to build my heel back up so I'm ready to go for multi-sport season. I'm using the exercises and tips (that I wrote about in my last post) from my new PT.

Tuesday was a 5 miler, and that was my longest run since my half marathon at the end of January. It was a "test," and my heel held up! (It was a pretty easy pace.)

And Saturday (between my long ride on Friday and my interval ride on Sunday), I "tested" my heel with a little speed. I warmed up for 1.5 miles, and then I did the next 3 miles in 19:00!! (6:30, 6:24, and 6:04.) I did NOT go "all out," but I just tried to keep it strong and hold good form.

And then my cats got cozy with my stanky shoes post-run:

So, bottom line, these numbers aren't that impressive, but I'm just happy to be doing this much coming off my injury:

(Oh, and notice Friday was my first 2-a-day in 5 months!!)

I'm FAR from 100%, but with smart decisions, I know I can work my way back up. Step-by-step. Here's to an injury-free spring and summer!!

OK, now back to my PT exercises from my last post..... ;)

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A Week of Non-Coached Workouts

• Sunday, 10/3: My last coached “workout:” the TC 10 Mile. I jogged a LITTLE afterwards, cheered like a mad-man for a few hours for the marathon runners, and stretched in the PM.

• Monday, 10/4: Absolutely. Nothing. And proud of it. ;)

• Tuesday, 10/5: 50 minutes of my old routine of weights and core at the Y. And some nice stretching and foam rolling.

• Wednesday, 10/6: Nothing. And still lovin’ it.

• Thursday, 10/7: Easy 4.4 mile run and some stretching. Just worked out the legs down Summit Ave and enjoyed the evening.

• Friday, 10/8: 90 minutes of mountain biking with my buddy Aaron. We met at his house, rode out to Theo Wirth, did the “out” section of trails followed by 3 loops on the main trail. Aaron's GREAT on those trails, and it was fun to follow him and push myself. My legs were a little tired on the third lap. I brought my former coach with me for the ride:

Yellow, purple, and orange peppers from our garden (and baby carrots)
ready for chicken tikka masala post-ride. Coach would have approved. ;)

• Saturday, 10/9: 42+ miles of easy-ish riding with Pharmie and Matt down the Gateway Trail. BEAUTIFUL DAY for a ride!!

Leaving St. Paul


Matt out in the country


BEAUTIFUL fall day! (That’s Matt WAY in the distance.)


Pharmie stopped at our 21 mile turn-around

After that, Pharmie and I worked on some quilting. She sews and I iron seams (and we both work on the layout of the blocks). We did that while her laptop was hooked up to our TV so we could watch the live "IronmanLive" Kona coverage on our much larger TV screen. Watching Ironman, I worked as my own Iron-man as I ironed quilt blocks:

• Sunday, 10/10: (today) I don’t know... maybe an easy-ish long run. Maybe some weights. Maybe nothing. We’ll see. ;)

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Two Rides Down the Gateway!!

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* * * * GATEWAY RIDE NUMBER ONE * * * *
Thursday was a chilly morning. Well, it was probably pretty "seasonable" for Minnesota, but we've been blessed with great weather lately. I was gearing up for a nice medium-to-long distance ride, and the TV was telling me to DRESS UP!

Dang. Somewhere around 50 degrees is usually my cut-off...

I got geared up. I wore tights over 2 pairs of bike shorts, my super warm GoLite Thermal top over my pretty warm Nike top, my Sugoi Tuke under my helmet, and my winter running Drymax socks. (I don't have any cold-weather booties for my bike shoes, and I NEEDED them for this ride...) Here I am getting ready to go:

I took off. It was chilly, but totally rideable. I rode past some rally playing HORRIBLE music at the State Capital:

Because it was so chilly, I had the Gateway to myself for most of the ride:

I rode up and past the North St. Paul Snowman. Notice the cold-looking sky:

At this point, even though I was wearing warm socks, I couldn't feel all of my toes. (However, I COULD feel my 11th toe [if you know what I mean], so all was OK.) I went a few miles further before turning around. At the end of the trail, there was a crew doing something in the sewers. I rode through this cloud of noxious gas that smelled like a hot, plasticy tire:

(Turns out it was a PVC sewer repair crew. Nasty.)

I was getting hungry. I told myself that I had EARNED Chipotle. Afterall, Jenny told me to make sure I was getting some food in me within 30 minutes of working out! ;) So I pulled my bike into Chipotle with about 4 miles left, and grabbed a burrito:

I threw the burrito in my little backpack, and rode the rest of the way home with a delicious rice child on my back. It made it home just fine:

I snapped a photo of myself as soon as I got home thinking I'd be pretty red from the chilly day. But I really wasn't. However, there IS something wrong with this photo:

Hint: it's APRIL.

• 33+ miles
• longest ride of the year (yay)
• 17.9 mph average (dang)
• 18.5 mph average before the final 7 residential miles


* * * * GATEWAY RIDE NUMBER TWO * * * *
Sunday, Matt (my brother-in-law) and I planned a nice trip down the Gateway. The goal was 40-45 miles. Just a good, long ride. ("Long" for 2 guys training for duathlons and sprint / oly triathlons.) Sunday was a BEAUTIFUL day!! We drove to the start of the trail (about a mile north of downtown St. Paul) so we could get farther out of the city and onto more open stretches of trail. Here we are as we got ready to ride:

Matt let Borsch know we'd be out there, and he met us a few miles into the ride. Here's Borsch and Matt near the Lake Phalen area:

"Exiting the city" near the I-694 loop

We met up with this nice stranger in a Bianchi jersey, and the 4 of us rode together for a number of miles:

We were pulling 25-28 mph for a few miles


Just past the end of the Gateway (with Pine Point Park to the right),
headed out to the Square Lake area

We chatted with a runner I'd seen around for a few years, but never "officially" met before. Her name is Stacey, and I'd seen her at the Dome all winter, and at the MDRA Lake Johanna 4 Mile race a few weeks back. She's SUPER nice. She was out on a "little" 18 mile stroll! Holy crap! Matt nearly spit out his water when she said that.

Matt, Borsch, and I hit the road towards Square Lake. Matt had been there (by car) for scuba training, and Borsch had never been out that way before. We took the rollers down to the lake, and snapped some photos at our turn-around:

Borsch and Matt


Borsch's shot of me to prove I was there too!
(Note the sweet Leisure Suit jersey from my lovely wife!)

Oh, and that road behind me in the photo above is right where the finish line is for the Square Lake Half Iron Distance Triathlon. Yes, that's the triathlon I did in 2008 when I wore a grim reaper costume for the 13.1 mile run:

Since I had a couple of local FB friends ask about this ride after I posted something to my wall after we got home, I thought I'd share the map of the course. Here's the ride (just one way) that we did on Sunday:

Working the open road back to the Gateway


Tons of families and riders at the Pine Point Park rest area


On the "detour" around the new bridge construction
(note the mound of dirt for the bridge ramp on the left)

We dropped Borsch off near his home, and Matt and I hammered out the last 6 miles. Here's a quick video I took without Matt knowing:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cagdqds3OQw

(And that's NOT my breathing at the end of the video. That's the wind. Really.)

Matt said "Chipotle," but I was going to resist. I was going to be a good boy. Then he said "Paisanos Pizza - maybe just a slice to tide me over til supper..." and I totally caved. We finished the ride, loaded up our bikes, and headed to Paisanos for a few slices of heaven:

• 44+ miles
• 18.7 mph "highest" average
• 18.5 mph average at the end

Thanks for the ride, fellas! What a great day!

And remember, if you haven't voted for your favorite "Fashion Fool," scroll down or click here to see the top 10 and to vote. And stop back tomorrow when EVERYONE will have a chance to win some gear from Sugoi and Ryders Eyewear! Plus, there's another special prize, too!

Stop back soon! Thanks!!

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