Little Longer than Expected

I planned on doing a 2.5 hour ride today but apparently my memory doesn't serve me too well, and the route I chose was more along the lines of 3 hours. Good ride today though. 5x5 minute efforts at about the same level I put in on the intervals with David on Tuesday. For about the last hour I kept a pretty good steady pace although I began to fade a bit toward the end.

Other things of note: I want a power meter! According to Joe Friel, without one, I'm simply training blind.

Yesterday: More gym time and an endurance ride with David Ansel. Ride time was around 2.5 hours all to spend maybe thirty minutes on a new road. Only so many places to ride in Starkville, MS. Looking forward to visiting my parents for a few days in Brandon, MS to get in some rides on some different roads.

Today: I planned on hitting up the mt bike or cross bike this morning, but I woke up to rain in the middle of the night. When my alarm went off it was still raining! WTF?! It wasn't even supposed to rain so I was undecisive on what to do. Finally I decided to get a little dirty. And the results.

And the shoes

Obviously I was wearing toe covers. And for breakfast... Honey Wheet Bagel covered in Skippy's Natural with Honey! Strawberry preserves on one and Nutella(pretty sure God's gift to man) on the other with a banana(probably another one of God's gifts).

Legs are feeling the work today. It's probably a combination of the rides and especially the weights. Hopefully it'll pay off.

4x5 min

That was it for today. 4x5 minute work sets with around 6 minutes of rest between. David Ansel had to do a little more, but I was going to ease into them. Despite really sore legs from the weights I felt pretty good. Probably went a little harder on the efforts than I should have, but that's ok. I'll pay later! ha. Total ride time was right around 3 hours

New Season!

Yesterday was the start to a brand new season! I got in around 3.5 hours on the group ride at a fairly easy pace. I hadn't done anything athletic for a week so I didn't expect to feel too great. I was also hopping back on my cross bike which had been set aside for the better part of 8 months. On top of that, I had new S-Works shoes with cleat placement based on a wild guess. Not only did I feel awkard, but my sit bones were sore too. Either way I got in some good miles.

Today I spent some time in the gym. Squats, lunges, bench press, lat pulldown, standing row, seated row, straight leg dead lifts, and the ab roller rounded out the routine. Joe Friel suggests weight training to all athletes so I'm trying to be open minded and have a real go at it. I used to really enjoy lifting weights, but I sort of dropped it when I got more into endurance sports. I tried to ease into it with lighter weights and higher reps per Friel's suggestion. Sort of embarrassing bench pressiing 95lbs, but I gotta keep my ego in check.

I followed that up with an hour spin on the trainer doing some spin ups and single leg drills. Nothing too hard.

Tomorrow it's steady state intervals with David Ansel. We'll see how well my legs hold up to that after that workout today!