Training tribulations, Ring of Fire wrap-up

Monday, September 27

I’ve gotten myself into a bit of a training conundrum. I’m signed up to do a double century on the bike on October 16 and a 10K run the weekend after. Normally this is a good time of year for a longer run because you can let the bike miles slide. The challenge here is to keep up the bike miles and climbing (there’s probably 15,000 feet of elevation in this double) and to ramp up both speed and distance in my running (I run--pretty slowly--a couple times each week to help preserve bone density).

There are the days before and after the ride that I should rest and therefore cannot be doing a nice, long prerace run. There are other conflicts, like a team meeting and related hoopla, that fill most of a weekend training day. And then there’s the wild card of the weather, which can make a 100-mile training ride seem mighty unnice if you try to actually schedule it into your training plan. Oh yeah, and it’s the time of year to start hitting the weights in the gym again.

There are other conflicts too, like the fact that I should spend every dry waking hour painting the house. Or two evening meetings. Or the fact that I refuse to get up in the morning at an hour that starts with a 4 to train. Or the fact that the city DOT closed a key arterial on my shortest route to work so that I cannot spend more of my prework time training instead of commuting.

I think I need to discover how to chart the dimension of time because right now my two-dimensional training schedule is pretty full. How do I access the 3D version of the spreadsheet?

Ring of Fire Wrap-up: It was good. I had my nutrition dialed in, talked myself out of skipping one installment in the interest of time, and had a minor meltdown (ALWAYS carry a spare gel in your pocket!) that utterly demoralized me (funny how lack of food and water plays with your brain!) for about 90 minutes. But it was a perfect day in a gorgeous location and I was on my bike. Best part of the night shift (supporting the 24-hour racers) was an 8-inch telescope brought by the wife of one of the 24s. I got to see Jupiter and 4 of its moons in all their glory while they were the closest to earth they’ll be in a long time, plus we saw the nebula that is the sword on Orion’s belt and the Andromeda galaxy. Yeah, it’s dark in Maupin at night!