Today was scheduled for a long run, but James, and I, decided to put together a nice brick instead. The day started out with neutral (16 – 18 mph), 35 mile ride. Nothing too much to report except that there were a few spots where we decided to set some tempo. Once back in our neighborhood, I headed home, put down some fluids, took a GU, and ran to meet up with James. I was a bit early to the rendezvous spot, so I took this opportunity to get some additional stretching in. Once James showed up, we took off for a 5 mile loop around our neighborhood. The first half was pavement, then trail, then pavement again. We wanted to keep a 9 – 9 ½ minute per mile. The ride was marginal and the run was pretty good. Put ‘em together, however, and it was a nice little work out.
Monday, June 28th
5 mile run before work. Usual loop.
Tuesday, June 29th
Moderate swim:
Warm Up – 300 swim & 300 kick
8x150 Pull (Desc 1-8) (:20 RI)
8x100 Pull (Desc 1-8) (:15 RI)
8x50 Pull (Desc 1-8) (:10 RI)
Warm Down – 100 swim
Wednesday, June 30th
Double trouble….Moderate ride, in the morning, and speed run in the evening.
The morning was super windy and not ideal riding conditions. I wanted to get 50 miles and knew that it was going to take me every bit of the 3 hours I had available. My final results were 50.17 at approximately 17.6 miles per hour. For some reason, I felt slow and sluggish. While I was happy to get in 50 before work, my overall satisfaction with this ride was average.
Today was scheduled as a “test” day. Erik wanted to time our 1 mile run for future reference and progress. Remember that the perimeter of the soccer fields is .33 miles. The total workout looked like this:
Warm up – 3 laps jogging / 2 x (¼ lap on, ¼ lap off)
3 laps race pace
Here are my results:
Lap 1 – 2:05 minutes
Lap 2 – 2:20 minutes
Lap 3 – 2:19 minutes
My 1 mile run came in at 6:44 and I couldn’t be happier. I was expecting something in the area of 7:15 minutes per mile. The workout wasn’t supposed to end with our timed one mile, but I was spent. After I realized that I needed 1 more lap to make my work out an even 3 miles, however, I got back on the field.
Thursday, July 1st
Day off. Leave for Alpine, AZ for the long weekend.
Friday, July 2nd
I was determined to get in some trail runs on this trip. Today, I wanted to put in 5-8 miles. Right out of the gate, I realized that 5 was going to be the magic number. I don’t if it was the altitude (8300 feet) or what, but I just didn’t “feel it” today. Along the route, 3 deer crossed the path right in front of me. I slowed down to see how close I could get, but they noticed me right away and bounced off into the forest. It was at this point that I remembered that I have seen elk and a Mexican Grey Wolf on this exact trail too. My father in-law actually saw a black bear and her cub once. The next 3 miles were spent running through different scenarios, in my mind, on how I would avoid a bear or wolf attack. Oh, and I had to lookout for the occasional ATV and motorcycle too. As I was headed back, there was a light mist that started to fall. The temp dropped a bit and I could really smell the forest. Overall, it was a very memorable run that gave me a great physical, and mental, challenge.
Saturday, July 3rd
The highway leading from Eagar to Alpine is about 26 miles long and is one that I’ve always thought about riding. Over the Memorial weekend, I did a little recon to see what the shoulders looked like and to see what condition the roads were in. Turns out that the shoulders are HUGE and the pavement is nice. That being said, I brought my tri bike to the mountains to give it a shot. When I was getting ready to roll (at 5AM) the thermometer said 48 degrees. Who would have thought that I’d be donning arm warmers and a wind vest in Arizona, in July?!? The ride started out phenomenal and only got better. On the way down to Eager, I even saw some elk on the side of the road. One of the best parts of the ride was around mile 12. This is where the elevation levels out, but keeps a nice downhill pitch for about 8 miles. I was able to get in my biggest gear, get aero, and just hammer. Overall, this was one of my most memorable, and enjoyable, rides this year. Total miles ridden were 51.
The turn-around point:
The road back can be seen in this pic. The cabin is somewhere in that mountain range on the right:
Elevation of my ride:
No comments:
Post a Comment