Week 16: Review

Another great week working back into my normal rhythm. With the bike now outside and decent weather to ride in, I'm finally getting my cycling mileage back up. I had hoped to get it to 100 miles for the week, but unfortunately a flat tire yesterday threw a wrench into those plans. Other than that, running went quite well with everything going roughly as scheduled. As one of the guys I run with on Wednesday had run Boston on Monday, we did a bit shorter distance than normal for our group session. Swimming also went well, with all sessions going down as planned.

Getting back outside on the bike it's difficult to reign myself in as I'd love to do some longer rides again. With that said, as I mostly did a maximum of distance of about 30K on the trainer this winter I limited myself to 50K rides this time around to be safe. I'll stretch that out a bit more this week and hopefully we'll be able to get the Saturday group rides back together shortly for the longer sessions.

Naturally, the downside to riding outside is that the weather sometimes can be unpredictable. On Wednesday's 30K ride, for instance, I ended up getting caught in a cloud burst just as I was heading back home. It didn't last too long and I managed to get to shelter pretty quickly, but I had to clear one of the larger hills on the course during the thick of it (bicycle brakes are significantly less effective when the rims get wet, so high speed descents can be a bit unnerving).

The one upside to that ride, however, was that I got a chance to try out the 705's mapping capacity. I was originally planning on doing the normal route, but part way through I felt like trying something a bit different than normal. There was a hill in the area that I've driven on a few times and have wanted to ride for a while, but most of the roads going towards it aren't particularly friendly for bikes (no shoulders, blind turns, etc.). When I stopped at an intersection I pulled up the map page on the cyclocomputer and managed to find a route that could get me there safely. It ended up working great, and aside from the weather (which I would have hit anyway) it turned out to be a good route that I'll likely do again sometime.

The map was also useful yesterday, as it made it a lot easier to tell my family where to find me after I flatted. Rural roads have some great scenery, but unless you are keeping track of every cross street it's sometimes difficult to pin down exactly where you are ;) Sideroads have a tendency to look somewhat alike, and trying to guide drivers to your location based on visual landmarks can be a bit sketchy. Fortunately, as I'd just made a turn it likely wouldn't have been too difficult to describe - but with the GPS I was able to be very specific.

On the tire front, I didn't get around to grabbing a replacement tire today between the long run this morning and short hours at the local stores. I'll be heading out tomorrow morning to grab what I need, although I'm still debating about whether to do it myself or have it done and worry about learning later. If the weather permits I'd like to get a ride in tomorrow afternoon, so part of me doesn't want to risk messing it up and figuring that out 10K into that ride ;)

Week 16 Totals:
Running: 48.8km (30.3mi)
Walking: 2.0km (1.2mi)
Cycling: 143.6km (89.2mi)
Swimming: 7.4km (4.6mi)
Total: 201.8km (125.4mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 610.4km (379.3mi)
Walking: 38.6km (24.0mi)
Cycling: 882.5km (548.4mi)
Swimming: 96.1km (59.7mi)
Total: 1627.6km (1011.3mi)