By a dead battery in my car from going to the pool. I do have one day of round two completed and am heading back into the pool today after a 3 day layoff. (Big props to PepBoys for getting me in and taken care of less then a hour before they closed)
But that battery hasn’t foiled my other training. Over the last 10 days I’m averaging 58-60 miles per rolling 7 days for running and about 2.5hrs cycling. Yesterday’s ride was a leg crusher, an easy 15 miles rolling from the house up the climbs on Ajo then crushing it along Ajo until Sandario. Tempo for the next 20 miles including several climbs that range in lenght from .5 miles to 2.5 miles and lots of rollers. Cruised the last 8 miles home. 4:06 for 80 and my average watts climbed from 120 at the top of Ajo up to 185 when I hit the river path some 40 miles later.
Yesterday was a bit surprising for the ride, my wattages where around mid last season watts. Amazing what happens to your fitness when you only for once take 2 weeks off of riding then two more weeks with only a couple of hours total compared to 2.5 months off the bike. Typically I start riding again sometime in January after not touching my bike from late October after I finish racing.
This is the first season since 2002 that I haven’t taken 2-3 months off the bike and 3-4 months out of the water. I have noticed that my run frequency and volume are down by 1.5x per week and about 8-10 miles per week consistenly over the past month and a half. In the long run though, staying on my bike and in the pool should bode well overall in triathlon. I’m willing to lose 1 minute on the run to gain 1 minute on the swim and 3-4 minutes on the bike in early season half races.
I love running, especially here in Tucson where we have so many great trails to run. Just this week I’ve run Starr Pass Loop, Phone line trail out and back, and one of my favorite runs Pima Community College XC trail loops. Pima is a 3.25 mile rolling loop with 4 major climbs on it and numerous false flat uphills. You can run it in either direction but running it in the harder direction takes about 23:XX minutes and running in the opposite direction takes about 21:XX miutes. Amazing what some really long uphill sections will do.
In the past few weeks running we’ve seen numerous deer, some Javelina, road runners, mountain bikers, rabbits, hikers, hawks, dudes walking around with bows and arrows wearing camo and orange hats (hunting season is bow and arrow only here), and heard a pack of coyotes howling after catching what I’d guess is a rabbit. It didn’t seem prudent to go chase them down and ask what was for breaskfast.
Happy New Year everyone!
