Week 23: Review

This week was a bit of a mixed bag weather-wise, as we had a lot of intermitant rain that interfered with my plans a bit. I managed to get my Monday and Saturday rides in without issue, but Wednesday and Thursday saw heavy rain so I had to skip those sessions. The temperature was actually pretty good this week, and on the days where I managed to avoid the rain it was actually quite pleasant out there.

Wednesday was probably the worst day, as asside from Around the Bay, the group run that night was probably the wettest one I've ever done. In addition to the torential downpour, the streets were covered in large ponds that were impossible to go around. Adding to the fun was a tidal wave that hit a couple of us as a van drove through a deep pool of water at 80km/h and soaked us from head to toe. Due to the weather, we decided to stick with a 6km route rather than the 5 miles (~8km) that I had planned - I hate to skimp on mileage, but given the weather and the fact that I'm still within my recovery period I didn't put up much of a fight ;)

Fortunately, yesterday was near perfect and I managed to get an excellent 75km ride in without any problems. The cycling group didn't end up getting together again this week, so I was on my own and elected to give a slightly longer ride a shot. The temperature was nice, so two bottles of water were more than sufficient and the winds weren't too bad. For the first 57km I managed to keep my average speed above 31km/h, but heavy traffic and a bit of a headwind on the last segment of trip dragged my average down to 30.1km/h by the time I returned home.

More Detail

With respect to running, aside from the shortened Wednesday run everything else went according to plan. Friday's run was the first time back to speedwork, which felt really good after several weeks of running with the brakes on. This morning was also the first General Aerobic run (9 miles/14.5km), and I took full advantage of that with an average pace of 4:50/km despite a pretty nasty headwind in some portions of the route. My heart rates have dropped significantly over the last week or so and are beginning to approach normal levels. They aren't quite what they were before the Marathon, but they're now down to about 5bpm of that point so it shouldn't be too much longer.

On another note, I ran some reports in ProTrainer to add up my totals for a post on twitter and realized that my totals here were a bit off. I've just been manually adding the weekly totals to the year to date numbers, and must have missed a week or two along the way as they were short of the actual distance. Either way, I've replaced the YTD field with the information that ProTrainer's reports indicate but eventually I'll have to go back and figure out what I missed ;) Until I do that, just disregard those totals in previous weeks (the weekly totals are correct, just the YTD totals).

Weekly Totals:
Running: 39.8km (24.7mi)
Walking: 2.1km (1.3mi)
Cycling: 135.6km (84.3mi)
Total: 177.5km (110.3mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 1187.1km (737.6mi)
Walking: 152.5km (94.8mi)
Cycling: 1,602.8km (995.8mi)
Total: 2,421.6km (1,504.7mi)

The upcoming week looks like it's going to be a bit dodgy as well, so my plans will have to be a bit fluid to compensate for variations in the weather. With the cycling group getting back together, however, hopefully we'll be able to piece together a longer ride to make up for any mileage lost earlier in the week. That will, however, depend on how far the others are interested in going ;)

Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Ride (probably not going to happen)
Tue 7mi (11.3K) GA
Wed 5mi (8K) Recovery
Thurs 50K Ride
Fri 8mi (12.9K) GA w/8x100m
Sat 80K (?) Group Ride
Sun 10mi (16.1K) GA