Week 29: Review

Things have thankfully cooled down a lot this week, and aside from a bit of unsettled weather it's made workouts a good deal easier. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I lost a spoke on Wednesday so my cycling mileage was pretty miserable this week. The bike should be finished on Tuesday, meaning that I'll likely loose a bit of mileage in the upcoming week as well - which is a shame as the weather tomorrow is looking like it will be great :( Fortunately, both running and swimming went as planned so my overall mileage wasn't dented too much.


This morning the weather outside was great, and made for the first long run in a while that was actually comfortable. It was still pretty warm (27C/60%), but that's a lot better than it has been and thanks to acclimatization it felt quite good. The first half of the run was under overcast skies, which helped a lot as well. The sun did come out for the remainder of the run, but fortunately the respite for the first portion meant that I was in better shape to deal with the extra heat at that point.

I hit the planned 17 mile point, and just as I was slowing down a couple of friends pulled up on their bikes so I accelerated a bit to keep up and chat for a bit. In the end, I put down a total of 17.5 miles with the last half mile or so at a 5K pace, which felt quite good. That's a big contrast to my attempt to hit 17 miles last week, where I had to cut it short due to hydration issues. Either way, it feels good to start getting back into serious distance runs again - now just have to start reintroducing the speedwork ;)

Cycling wise, the first half of the week went pretty good - hitting planned mileage targets at relatively decent speeds despite some brutal winds. I put down a strong 50K ride on Monday, with a great tailwind assisted 50+km/h stretch down Jane street. Wednesday's 30K ride was much the same before the spoke snapped on me. Fortunately, I was already heading back at the time and only about 300m from home so it was easy enough to walk it back.

Not entirely sure what triggered it, as I hadn't hit any big bumps and was simply decelerating when it went (slow moving bus was ahead of me), but I'll ask the guys at the shop when I pick it up to see if there is anything I can do to avoid this in the future. The Shimano R500 wheels that the bike came with aren't the greatest, so perhaps it's time to start thinking about getting a proper set for it.

Week 29 Totals:
Running: 59.3km (36.9mi)
Walking: 1.5km (0.9mi)
Cycling: 79.5km (49.4mi)
Swimming: 7.8km (4.8mi)
Total: 148.1km (92.0mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 1273.0km (791.0mi)
Walking: 66.6km (41.4mi)
Cycling: 2689.6km (1671.2mi)
Swimming: 187.2km (116.3mi)
Total: 4216.4km (2619.9mi)