The Plan

Reviewing my training logs, more often than not I've only run two times a week instead of three. I've done well getting my long run in every Sunday, usually not too much slower than target pace. My mid-week tempo runs have been a mixed bag. This week's was perfect, 7.3 miles at 7:36, 7:37, 7:24, 6:57, 7:00, 7:04, with a 9:10 pace cooldown. I even threw in some gentle grades on the nearby cul-de-sacs. Some of my other tempo runs have been a bit short or a bit slow, but I've managed to get out there. The speedwork session is what has been missing. I've needed more recovery from the long runs than I'm supposed to need. Some of the muscles in my lower leg just haven't adapted to the workload.

Originally I planned to substitute hill runs for track work much of the time. This hasn't really happened either. With daylight still scarce, usually I am running from home, and it's just pretty flat. Last weekend at the KL North TC, the snow kept me off the hilly backroads up there. So this week I thought I'd better step up and try to do the third run for a change. My tempo run was Wednesday, and with a long run scheduled for this Sunday, that made today, Friday, the best day. The forecast was for "dangerous" cold and wind, but when I got up this morning, although it was only 2 degrees outside, it was sunny and didn't seem too windy. Taking the time to dress extra warm left me running a bit late, but I headed out and did about 6K or so (left the GPS out of it as I wasn't going to stand in the driveway freezing while waiting for it to synch up) in 28 minutes. This wasn't a structured speed session, but I was toasty warm inside my wind pants so I did a sort of fartlek run with some pieces of hard up tempo running on the few grades I traversed.

My off days have been spent on the trainer. Wednesday I did a double session with a 30 minute spin in the morning before the run, then in the evening I put the fixed gear on the (out of round) rollers I have and gave that a try. I only lasted 15 minutes. The 56x17 was a little much for what I wanted to do, even on 4.5 inch Kreittlers. They have this neat little chart that specs the wattage I would have been putting out at somewhere between 125 (at 80 rpm) and 175 (at 100 rpm) but it still seemed too hard to me. I'll try swapping out the 56 for a 53 and going to a 20 or 21 cog in the back. I think I can manage that without cutting any links out of the chain.

Yesterday I did the trainer twice, 24 minutes in the a.m. and 40 at night. Still not riding hard, but harder than at the beginning of the month. Has anyone tried the new Kurt Rock and Roll trainer? This one lets you rock the bike when climbing out of the saddle. It looks like the vacant other side of the duplex I live in has some new neighbors moving in this weekend, so I may need to upgrade to a quieter fluid trainer (still using my trusty Blackburn fan) soon, and the new Kurt looks like the way to go.

That's it for now, straight up and boring, but work beckons. I'm hoping for an outdoor ride tomorrow and 12 miles with hills on Sunday, but we'll see. Thanks for reading.