Week 19: Review

Another bit of a weird week this time around, but fortunately I managed to squeeze in most of what I wanted to do. Thankfully, the weather finally gave us a decent Saturday so our cycling group managed to get together for the first time this season. Unfortunately, this was also the first ride outdoors for a couple of the guys, so the pace was pretty slow as we wanted to stick together for the duration. Either way, we managed to squeeze out a little under 73K through Bradford and Queensville and plan to up that mileage as long as the weather permits. It was nice to again have some company for these trips, and despite the slower pace it was a great ride.

I took the opportunity to try out the Edge 705's navigation features, as we wanted to do something a little different than normal. I made up a quick route on RunSaturday and after a few back and forth emails to find a consensus, I redrew it on BikeRouteToaster and loaded the TCX file into the computer. Fortunately, the mapping capacity worked flawlessly and it made it easy to find our way down an unfamiliar route. Aside from guiding us along the path, being able to see exactly what was coming up ahead was quite handy.

In this case I used the courses functionality (BRT generates the entire path and the 705 follows it), but at some point I'd like to give the routes option a shot (the route contains waypoints and the 705 navigates between them). The downside to this option is that if there are differences between the 705's routing engine and the website that generated the map, the path may vary a bit so one has to be careful. The upside, however, is that the 705 gives much more detailed turn instructions and can provide countdown readings (ie distance/time to the next turn). It also has the benefit of allowing you to go off of the route and the 705 will then try to get you back to it (with courses it just tells you you're off route and waits for you to get back to it). BRT only generates courses, however, so to try this out I'm going to have to find another website (or piece of software) that can generate the necessary files.

As Saturday was relatively cold, we elected to leave a bit later than normal (10:00am) which combined with the slow pace meant that there wasn't enough time to squeeze in my 4 mile recovery run. I also had to move around my mid-week runs a bit, but fortunately I managed to squeeze in the intended mileage. Cycling mileage is down as well this week, as between last week's long run offsetting my Monday ride and rain on other days I only managed to ride on Thursday and Saturday.

All was looking good for my long run this morning, with a plan to get 14 miles in to make it a clean 30 for the week. In the latter half of the run, however, my heart rate was reading higher than normal so I tried to back off the pace. That didn't help a whole lot, so I took a few breaks to let it settle back down. Unfortunately, it wasn't recovering as quickly as I would have liked. Aside from being warm, I felt fine, but I figured that I didn't take in enough fluids on my ride the other day so to play it safe I cut it short at 12 miles and called it a day.

When I got back to the computer, however, I looked at the R-R plots from my HRM and it appears it was just a matter of noise in the signal. I had tightened the strap a bit before heading out as it was getting a bit loose, and that likely through off the numbers. As such, I likely should have just ignored it and did the last two miles, but given the information at the time I figured it was the best path. With that said, my weight is about 3lbs lighter than it was yesterday, so being a little low on fluids may have played a part as well (I drank about a liter during the run, but only had 500mL yesterday). Either way, I've readjusted the strap and am drinking a lot today so hopefully I can avoid this situation in the future.

Week 19 Totals:
Running: 44.7km (27.8mi)
Walking: 1.0km (0.6mi)
Cycling: 95.1km (59.1mi)
Swimming: 7.2km (4.5mi)
Total: 148.0km (92.0mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 744.0km (462.3mi)
Walking: 42.3km (26.3mi)
Cycling: 1216.8km (756.1mi)
Swimming: 117.5km (73.0mi)
Total: 2120.6km (1317.7mi)

Fortunately, the weather this week is looking pretty good so I'm hoping to begin to ramp up the cycling mileage to proper levels again. I'm still trying to find an alternative to highway 9 for my eastbound trip, but for the time being I may simply have to go back to using it as I've had no luck so far. Queensville Sideroad looks like it will be useful for my longer rides (~100+km), but when I start from home it's too far north for the shorter routes.

Tentative Schedule:
Mon 50K Ride
Tue 3.25K Swim, 6mi Recovery
Wed 30K Ride, 6mi Recovery
Thurs 3.25K Swim, 6mi GA
Fri 50K Ride
Sat 4mi Recovery, 80k Ride
Sun 14mi (22.5K) LSD