Training Tuesday October 20- 26

Goal    99 miles

Actual Total 52 miles

1^st Ride 26 miles

2^nd Ride 26 miles

Week Total  52 miles

I made and used a checklist. I took everything I was supposed to for both rides.(including my bike 🙂 Can I have a sticker? I put in cool comet graphics and a target, but it didn’t import into wordpress :(. If I can’t figure out how to share it with graphics, I’ll share it in boring form soon.

1^st Ride  The trail was so pretty. Over time trees lean in over roads, railways and trails to get the sunlight, so you get the tree tunnel effect. Then there will be clearings with a lot of light and depending on the time of day, you sometimes get to see a light at the end of the tunnel kind of effect. Our fall color was late this year, but the trees just started to change. The trail was covered with the first leaf litter and just as I started to ride, a single golden leaf fluttered down flashing it’s golden color in front of the light at the end of the tunnel. It was like the opening scene to a movie. I haven’t seen very many “OPh man I wish I was filming already”shots.

The night before this ride I was ready for a good ride and looking forward to it. I woke to a big knot in my right hand. I believe it was another bite. I had been weeding the day before without gloves, and I had also been weeding just before the one on my leg. I couldn’t find a bite mark on this one, but it looked otherwise like the first one. I got some antihistamines early this time. The last bite was enough of a production to get me to the doctor, and I do that rarely. A painful swollen knot where I hold my handlebars was the limiting factor for this ride.

2^nd ride   Thunderstorms kept me from next day I had available. When I did get to ride the knot was just as big as the first ride, but slightly less painful. Time was the limiting factor, but I don’t know that I had the juice to go much farther if I could have. We got our flu shots the day before. I felt soreness around the shot this year. That’s unusual. It could have been a drag on me. The Silver Comet was more crowded out west where we ride, probably because no one else rode in the thunderstorms either.

I thought about going out to see how far I could ride the last day of my training week, but it was the day before my first ride for the following week. Back to back push rides would make next week harder and I wanted to start next week strong. Some of my weeks would look more perfectly on target if I shifted back or forward by a day now and then. Which is also to say that a daily chart of my mileage would smooth the progression out a bit.

I need to keep my head in the right place after a week with just over half the goal mileage. I already ride well enough to meet my video project goal, and all of this extra training is prep in case the push goal makes. And, if I can do 95 miles in a week in October, doing that in one day by January is certainly going to be doable. So, obviously, I’m on the right track as long as I move toward fewer longer rides. Of course, I don’t just want to make the push goal. I want to make the push plus goal and ride it in both directions every week. There are so many different ways to plan this, but for now, I’m still training like I’m going to ride around 260 miles a week by the end of January. That’s what I want and I’m willing to work for it.

I’m beginning to realize that Russ will have to take a longer leave than I had planned if the push or push plus goal makes. He’s reaching a point where increasing his miles is more difficult based on time constraints and limiting factors like weather rather than ability. Some of our weekend obligations are about to end, and that will help. The days are shortening and the temperatures are dropping. The drop was welcome to a point, but once ride temps drop below 50 degrees,you just need more energy before the peddling even starts. The winters have been mild and short lately. Maybe this one, and next one will be too.