Thursday, March 08, 2012

Seventy Down

And so the streak continues. Yesterday's was a fairly unpleasant ride despite the warm weather and sun. You see, the mid day trail run on top of hill sprints the night before made for some very unhappy legs. That was, however, day 70 in a row of riding bicycle. That doesn't mean I've been spending hours and hours each day on the bike. I've been doing active recovery rides and easy 40 minute spins on the rollers some days. I did notice though that my weekly average ride time is 13:37 and the average weekly mileage is 177.8 so far for 2012. Not crazy but not too bad for the "dead of winter". I've yet to crack the 2000 mile mark this year. I partially attribute that to the amount of MTB riding I've been able to do vs. road riding.

My training calendar is looking pretty full and I have to go back almost to Christmas to find a white spot. This is less a testament to my personal fortitude and more a testament to the fact that we just didn't have any real winter this year. Last year I had like 35 XC ski days in at this point. This year I got in exactly 2, and they were marginal at best. I have gotten some running in but that's a different story all together.

The Cycling log for the year so far.

When is this streak going to end? I don't know for sure. I'd guess that once the season starts up in earnest I will get sick or tired of riding and take a day off here and there. Regardless, this has been a winter season for the record books. Lets hope it's an anomaly and not a part of some bigger, scary trend. It's funny how the whole doomsday thing is in vogue these days. Between the crazy Mayans and their 2012 connection, the insane weather extremities of recent past, the global political unrest and economic concerns and woes, television is ripe for doomsday based programming. The "educational channels" (which really aren't any longer) such as TLC, History and Discovery Channel now has multiple doomsday prepping/bunker series as well as the staple cataclysmic event scenario programming that they have had for some years. I guess that gloom and doom is good business indeed.

Anyhow, day 71 is slated for a smackdown, take no prisoners, left for dead, 40 mile road ride. A bunch of us did this as a regular Tuesday night series last spring. It was brutal. I'm not sure what I've got in the tank but I'm pretty sure that as much as the legs hurt yesterday, they are going to hurt a whole lot more later on. Should be a nice night for it.

1 comment:

Hill Junkie said...

Wow. I've been on the bike a measly amount so far this season. Weekly averages are 3.1 rides, 75 miles and 5.6 hours. Total aerobic volume is higher, almost 10hrs per week when including skiing and running. I have zero hours indoors. Bike volume will go up about 5x next week when I head out to Arizona and hang up the skis for the season. I see some guys riding more miles in one ride than I do in two weeks... just crazy.