Week 45: Review

As is normal for this time of year, the weather has again been somewhat disruptive to my plans this week and I didn't manage to successfully get any cycling mileage in. It's getting to the point where I'm going to have to consider moving the bike in and onto the trainer, but as I'm not really fond of working out indoors I'm resisting that shift as long as practical. Naturally, once it starts snowing then I won't have any issues, but I'll take cold fingers and toes over staring at a wall for hours on end ;) The caveat at this stage has mostly been rain and wind, however, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a stable few days to get a few more long rides in.

Further complicating the schedule was the fact that I couldn't get out to the pool on Tuesday as the power company came to switch the old meter for one of those new smart meters. Unfortunately, when they pulled the old meter out the mount that it attaches to broke (likely due to a lightning strike we had more than 10 years ago) so I hung around until they could get a lineman out to switch off the power at the street and replace the box. That process took a few hours, unfortunately, so I missed the pool session and was lucky to get my run in in the afternoon. I have to give them credit though, they stuck around for the entire time and made sure that it got fixed ASAP.

Tuesday was unfortunately one of the near perfect days this week weather-wise, however, so it took away an opportunity to squeeze in a cycling session. Wednesday and Friday were both rainy, and while I could have gone out on Thursday other commitments made that difficult so I didn't get a chance. I was hoping to get out on Saturday, but extremely heavy winds (50+km/h with gusts up to 90km/h) made me decide against it for safety reasons.

Fortunately, I did manage to get all of my runs in, although due to scheduling issues I ended up shortening the 8 milers to 6 and the 16 miler to 14.3. In addition, the guys from the running group are back to fighting shape so we did a good hard run on Wednesday rather than the recovery pace that I expected. We started out pretty slow, but by the end we were approaching 4:00/km pace for the last 1000m or so - felt good to stretch the legs out in a sustained manner like that for a change!

In the pool, I saw some significant improvements this week. During the clinic our instructor gave us some suggestions on improving our drive stroke, and it appears to be paying off directly in speed improvements. It was difficult to judge during the clinic itself as we were wearing flippers for most of the session, but when I got out on Wednesday and Friday my 750 and 1,000m meter sets were significantly faster (~15sec/100m) with little additional effort.

Week 45 Totals:
Running: 56.7km (35.2mi)
Walking: 2.3km (1.4mi)
Cycling: 0.0km (0.0mi)
Swimming: 8.9km (5.5mi)
Total: 67.9km (42.2mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 2,199.5km (1,366.7mi)
Walking: 213.3km (132.5mi)
Cycling: 3,481.0km (2,163.0mi)
Swimming: 100.3km (62.3mi)
Total: 5,994.1km (3,724.6mi)

Fortunately, the weather today looks pretty good so I'll be heading out for a 50K ride right after lunch (which should comfortably take me over 6,000km for the year). If the forecast holds, Friday and Saturday are likely to be pretty good as well so hopefully I'll be able to work in another 50K and hopefully a 100K on the weekend. Wednesday is likely to be a write-off, so I didn't bother scheduling a bike session on that day anyway. Running and swimming will likely be as normal, as neither is really that dependent on weather.

Tentative Schedule:
Mon 50K Ride, Tri Swim Clinic
Tue 2.5mi Swim, 8mi Recovery w/10x100m
Wed 6mi Recovery
Thurs 2.5mi Swim, 8mi Recovery
Fri 50K Ride
Sat 4mi Recovery, 100k Ride
Sun 16mi (25.7K) LSD