Thursday, January 04, 2007

1/03/2007 Brick Training

Long Ride up Little Miami Bike Trail. It was a fairly cold day, especially at the beginning of the ride in the morning. It was probably around 40 degrees at the beginning of the ride, but with the promise of a warmer day coming I stayed fairly light on the clothing: wool socks, shoe covers, long tights, long under shirt, short sleeve jersey, and arm warmers layered over top to strip off if it got too warm. I also had my running gloves on with my cycling gloves over top for strip off layering. As far as head gear, just my helmet and a headband that covers the ears. I was cold at the beginning of the ride, but knew that I'd warm up.

What I didn't count on was the fact that the bike trail was mostly shaded by the surrounding trees and hillsides along the river. The occasional cold wind also didn't help things out. All in all, it was still a great ride. It's January 3rd it's above freezing and sunny. I really can't ask for much more than that.

Dist: 41.2 miles
Avg: 15.6 mph
Max: 21.1 mph
Time: 2:38.23

...and as if the 40 miles that finished up with some numb toes and some shivers wasn't enough I decided to turn the session into a brick session. I didn't do nearly enough of this last year: a total of 3 times?!! yikes. Well now that I have a great fitness base I don't have an excuse to not take it up a notch this year and work the brick workouts over. Maybe it will help with my cramping issues that I had last year during some of the races.

I took my time after the ride changing my shoes and racking my bike on the car. I wasn't really planning on doing the running at all until after being off the bike fore a few minutes and starting to feel my toes and eating an orange. It brought a surge of energy back into my body so I threw on my cycling jacket and took off running down the path. I ran about 2 1/2 miles for the run. It was just enough to feel that initial stiffness of starting after the ride and loosening up as the run went on. I forgot to start my chrono at the beginning of the run so my timing isn't exact, but it took about 17:05 to do the run. I clocked in one mile at 7:44 min/mile, which isn't bad at all. I'm going to work this in as a regular part of my regiment as I ramp up into marathon/spring training starting this weekend. If I can figure out how to do it I'll post my training schedule here or on an attached google page like my links page and results page.

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