Not a bad week... in review

This last five days have been a little difficult. I've been trying to get my ass into shape for Xterra Snow Valley while still trying to shake the crud out of my lungs. I have been over my cold for about a week and it didn't even work me at its worst but like I've talked about before, my lungs are pretty sensitive. Bleomycin tore through my body as part of the ABVD cocktail for my cancer. Notorious for causing complications in the lungs, every now and then, like now, I'm reminded of where I'm coming from and how lucky I am to be a part of this whole gig. Despite all this the training has been going surprisingly well.

Yesterday I tweeked the schedule a little by taking my swim workout to the ocean. It was pretty flat and I had only a small window to get it in so I cruised down the hill and jumped in.

I tried to stick to the bones of the workout by getting in a decent warmup followed by some laddered intervals ~ race pace strarting from 8 minutes down to 4 in one minute increments. I did (2) 1 minute intervals of fast swimming between sets. I can't tell how much more satisfying it is swimming in the ocean, slipping past surfers in the lineup seeming a total contrarian. I like surfing but those guys were sitting/looking around alot waiting for a week southerly pulse. Total time 50 mins. I opted out of the following run to pick it up today with some cleaner lungs.


Monday
off


Sunday
One hour run Z1-2. I felt a little tight in the first part of this run but paying attention to warm up helped. My legs felt strong once I got going and I am definitely feeling strength gains from the cycling especially the hamstrings. It was pretty warm with some humidity and had to pay attention to keep the HR sub 150, especially in the last quarter. Once again still coughing up some shiz.


Saturday
was the keynote ride of the week. Special guest Ramon and James showed up for the mountain ride. We left from Pine Valley and headed up to Laguna Summit and around the ~50 mile loop with close to 5k feet of climbing. I was just glad to keep in touch with James on this climb. He definitely had the advantage (at 61 kilos) during the last pitch of the climb where I was topping out at 310W (CP6-12) to hang on. We regrouped and motored down the hilly ridge. We encountered some fun descending and I tried to expand my skills on the hairpin sections. The last grade was a killer where I had some hip flexor cramping probably from the SL drills on Friday. Great ride with beautiful scenery. Timewise we came up short of the four hours planned but the three hour effort we did put in was pure quality.





First 60 minutes of the ride including major climbs-one turn around



Friday
I completed a 90 minute trainer ride including some "hills" after 20 mins of SL drills. The hills were steady at 245 W+ with the cadence dropping as I went through the gears. At 80 minutes I decided 1.5 hours is just about the upper limit for me on the trainer. A lot of pressure in the seat.

Good work. I was a little nervous about the long mountain ride but I knew James would be prefatigued as well, I hoped.


Sooooo. As of now I'm still planning on racing at Snow Valley but it's more dependent on finding a place for my family to stay. A solo weekend is not in the cards. I kind of wished I picked up the Solana Beach sprint this weekend instead. Down the road I'm looking to Imperial Beach sprint on Aug. 26th for the next peak.