My sixth training weeks went from one extreme to the other in terms of weather. The first part of the week
consisted of all indoor workouts due to cold and very windy conditions. I can handle the bike trainer, but I really try to avoid the treadmill as much as possible. After failing to secure a treadmill at the fitness center Monday night, I decided to utilize their indoor track instead. Mistake!
The indoor track at my current fitness center is located on the upper floor and overlooks the strength training area below. The track is about a elongated circle, so you are constantly turning. It does not have any banking on the turns either. So with that and a race pace tempo run and new pair of New Balance led to some nice blisters and some bloody shoes. Bummer. Fortunately it didn’t affect the rest of the weeks runs a all. Wednesday night I kept to running straight on the treadmill.
All that indoor training was quickly forgotten come the weekend. The temps soared into the high 50’s(deg F) and the sun was blasting. Ahhhh! I also utilized a massage credit I had at the fitness center on Friday after my swim. Oh man…that was good! I wish I could get one of those every week.
Saturday I got out for a nice ride. Temps were perfect and the wind was pretty mellow(6-8mph N-NE). It was a gorgeous day. I was only supposed to ride for 1:50, but I stretched it out to 2:15. Legs felt good, but it was a pretty easy ride too. One thing I noticed later in the ride was some strangeness in my rear wheel that concerned me. It kept engaging like when you are freewheeling and you start pedaling again and the cassette engages the wheel. It just kept engaging. Hmmm….
I also picked up a new pair of Reynolds carbon fiber race wheels. They were on sale at Performance Bike for less than I could get a used pair of Zipps on eBay. I checked around and could not find any bad reviews. I consulted John at Sleeping Dog Pro Cycles and he thought they had some wind issues with over 15 degrees of yaw. Most of the reviews said they were good in the wind though. We shall see. I got the Assault/Strike combo which gives you a 46 front and a 66 rear, which should make steering a little more forgiving.
On Sunday, I was able to coordinate training with the Wifey which was cool. She was set to do a 9 miler and I needed to do 1:30 which was pretty close. We decided on doing the Ironton Rail Trail since she prefers a asphalt surface and this trail is mostly that. It had been a few years since we last toured this trail and it was on mountain bikes when we did it. This was an excellent path for running. Pretty flat too except for a long gradual climb near the Coplay Kilns area, which isn’t too bad. It was a nice day, but not quite as nice as Saturday though. A few more clouds, wind and lower temp. I ended up with around 9.5 miles which was cool Felt like I didn’t do anything.
We also turned the clocks ahead on Sunday morning, so now we got some extra light for my after work runs. Only thing it is going to be a little dark in the mornings. I sure hope the temps hold up again.
