TR Training: Week #3 Numbers

Total Saddle Time: 15 hrs, 4 minutes
Total Mileage: 170.5 miles
Total Elevation Gain: 9,920 feet
Weight Loss: -1.8 pounds

The periodization plan I came up with for this year runs in 4-week cycles, with every fourth week being a recovery week. That places some added pressure to not skip any days in the third week of each cycle and, if possible, make that week tougher than normal. And that was the plan for this past week and it went pretty well too, with only two slight alterations to the plan. Namely, Monday and Sunday's workouts on the trainer were each scheduled for 2 hours but only ended up being 1 hour due to some knee soreness. Other than that, everything went really well. I haven't done a day-by-day rundown in a couple weeks so here's how I spent week #3 of my 40-week TransRockies training.

Monday - Road Bike, Stationary Trainer. Rode for 1 hour alternating 10 minutes at 90rpm in small chainring with 5 minutes in big chainring. Kept in 15-tooth cog the entire time. Also did some light weight-lifting during the final 30 minutes of the ride.

Tuesday - Mountain Bike, Singletrack. Headed to Tolt-MacDonald Park for a a little over 10 miles of singletrack at night. Trails were nice and dry and the weather was pretty nice. Plus, I finally had gotten my Lake Winter MTB Shoes so my feet were nice and toasty. 910 feet of elevation gain.

Wednesday - Mountain Bike, Endurance Ride. Rode railroad grade trails from Snoqualmie up past Rattlesnake Lake and then back. The ride was a bit over 30 miles and had 1300 feet of gain.

Thursday - Road Bike, Hill Climb Time Trial. Took the road bike out onto Snoqualmie Parkway for the first of my monthly hill climb time trials. I wrote about this last week, but in short it ended up being a total of 12.9 miles and 1460 feet of climbing in 46 minutes. I was really happy with how it went.

Friday - Road Bike, Stationary Trainer. Back onto the trainer for a lengthy 2 hour ride. At least I got to watch "Iron Monkey" again. It was suggested to me that my knee pain may be from pushing too high a gear on the trainer so today when I shifted to the big ring, I made sure to drop a gear in the back and then drop another after 5 minutes.

Saturday - Mountain Bike, Endurance Ride. What a day. Racked up 49 miles and 6200 feet of elevation gain in nonstop rain (and I stupidly took my fenders off before rolling out the door because, "it hasn't rained in a few days, the trails will be dry". I also didn't have my rain pants on over my tights and I was soaked and water pooled up inside my Gore-Tex sock covers -- enough water that when I finally emptied it, it ran out of my garage like a small stream.) Anway, Ken and I rode from Snoqualmie to Mt. Tenerriffe and climbed a few miles up Mt. Teneriffe. This particular climb gets pretty darn steep and actually ascends at a rate of 100 feet per tenth of a mile after a while. The trail is rocky and steep and it was pouring out. Not fun. From there, we descended back into North Bend and made out way on the SVT up past Rattlesnake Lake and just about all the way to Twin Falls, before turning around and heading back past Rattlesnake Lake to Snoqualmie. We were out for 5.5 hours and I felt good even at the end. Was able to climb back onto Snoqualmie Ridge in the middle ring and never dropped below 3rd gear during the climb. Had I not have lost total feeling in my feet 2 hours before ending the ride, I may have wanted to add on some more distance.

Sunday - Road Bike, Stationary Trainer. Okay, I'm glad I didn't add on any more mileage Saturday. I felt great at the end of Saturday's ride, but my entire body ached Sunday morning. I spent most of the day watching football then finally got onto the trainer for a 1 hour recovery spin. Only popped into the big ring for 5 minutes to get the heart rate up a bit, but mostly just sat and spun while watching a couple episodes of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" on DVD.

The one thing that I'm somewhat bummed out about this week is that my weight was really coming down. After a couple weeks of somewhat static weight change, I dropped about 5 pounds earlier this week. And every day that scale was showing improvements. And then then the BBTC holiday party came on Saturday, and although I only had two beers, nobody brought much in the way of real food this year. Everything was store-bought cookies and pies and snacks. Which, having just ridden for 5.5 hours a few hours earlier made for a bad combination and BAM! The weight was back on by morning. Christmas is going to be a challenge, especially at my father's house.

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