Winter Rides

We often spend the entire winter training indoors - hopping on a trainer, heading to the gym for a spin class, spending countless hours on the mind-numbing treadmill.  Well...not this year.  For one, the weather has been almost 'spring-like' and therefore the normal excuses don't really apply.  Another reason - gear!  What we athletes won't do to justify the purchase of another piece of 'gear'?!  Like I said in my previous post - I have recently acquired lobster gloves, booties, and windproof/waterproof tights.  So how have these items been holding up you ask?  GREAT!  That first ride a few weeks back I wore them all.  

Let's start with the tights.  They have a windproof/waterproof front and a thicker regular cloth type back.  My legs stay dry and warm without the unnecessary diaper butt that most cycling pants have.  In fact, these pants don't have any padding, so regular tri-shorts can fit nicely underneath - creating (as one friend noted) a nice 'sausage link' look on your thigh.  The only downfall to this particular pair (Novara brand) - there is no drawstring, so you either have to hike them up way high when you first start riding or they inevitably slip down.  I had the pleasure of this 'sagging' during that first ride - noted by my riding companions 'hey, Meghan, your pants are falling off'.  Luckily I was wearing tri-shorts underneath so there was no plumber's crack exposed.  For those of you in the market - there are brands with drawstrings (Sugoi) but I didn't find those to fit as well and they were much more expensive.

Lobster gloves - what can I say...they serve the purpose albeit in an unattractive way.  But who is really out there for fashion anyway?  My hands stay warm and dry and I still have the functionality in the appropriate fingers for shifting and breaking.  In fact, never before have my hands been sweaty during a cold weather ride.  On one of the rides recently (a clear crisp day) I tried riding with fingerless gloves under a pair of thin mittens.  Although my hands stayed relatively warm I didn't have the control for shifting, aero position, and breaking that I had with the lobster gloves.  So these are now the new 'go to' glove for the next couple of months.

Last but not least are the booties.  These are by far the favorite purchase out of the three items.  They are basically a neoprene wrap around my cycling shoes.  Like the other two, they keep me warm and dry but in addition they make me look completely bad ass.  Or at least I think so.  I don't have an actual picture of them so here's one I grabbed from the internet.  If nothing else I would suggest these.  Fingers you can blow on when they are cold...toes, not so much.

Well that's it for new gear.  Here are a few shots from my recent rides.

 Oops!  Forgot to actually set the timer

Misinterpreted Workout

As many of you know I'm having more than a little trouble nailing down a training plan for my races this year (not to worry - I've solicited help and am eagerly awaiting a response).  This past week was week #1 of training and, sans 'real' plan, I riffled through 3 training plans I've downloaded off the internet to try and create my workouts.  The week looked like this:

Sunday - 23.69 mile bike ride (the mileage only looks random because I rode from my house to meet up with everyone).
Monday - Swim drills with a main set of 10 x 50s with 10 sec rest; Strength training
Tuesday - 45 min trainer ride; Track workout (explained below)
Wednesday - Swim workout - main set of 5 x 100s
Thursday - 50 min trainer ride using spinervals
Friday - REST
Saturday - 20 mile bike ride

So, getting back to the point of this post...let's look at Tuesday's workout.  On one of the said training plans it states 'Run for 40 minutes.  10 minute warm up, then do 20 second strides before returning to RPE3 pace.  Repeat strides every 5 minutes until the end of the workout.'

Well, I headed out to the track at the usual time and proceeded to do an easy 2 mile warm-up.  Once at the track I tried to set my watch to beep at me every 20 seconds but then settled on just running the straights hard and jogging the turns...repeating until 20 minutes was up.  Now jogging the turns doesn't take 5 minutes, more like 1.  And, running the straights 'hard' wasn't exactly what the plan intended.  There was even a comment in the plan that said 'By slowly accelerating from normal run pace to near top speed, but over a very short time, you should not feel at all fatigued...'.  

Here's how it turned out - I ended up running 18 100s and was completely done 18 minutes into the workout.  So much for not feeling 'at all fatigued'.  Below I've included my GarminConnect output - you'll notice the 18 100s in the first 20 minutes and then a complete stop as I chatted with folks, stretched and did core and balance work in the infield.  Basically just trying to recover!  The last 10 minutes is the cool down.  The red line is my heartbeat.  I realize that for most of you a heart rate above 200 means certain death but being a 'high beater' this is fairly normal.  Caveat - I haven't hit above 200 in well over 4 months so this workout was quite taxing.

And lastly, here's a glance at my week in minutes.  Looks like we're back in training!