Crucibulum

Author: James

  • SIR Winter Training Series – Ride 1

    Saturday morning saw the first in the winter training series rides that SIR run each year. A group of about 50 people showed up to the start at Sammamish Valley Cycle and we went for a 40 mile loop. The route itself had been re-planned at the last moment due to extensive flooding in WA last week. Unfortunately (for me) this meant we had to get above the flooded roads and thus a fair bit more climbing was involved to get to the proverbial “high road”. My pace was pretty slow but I plodded along and finished eventually.

    It helped reinforce the decision to start commuting by bike again and so I picked up some waterproof panniers to carry my laptop safely and fixed up my bike for Monday’s commute. Hopefully a couple of weeks of daily riding will get my legs back to flying up these early season hills.

  • January Stats

    Weight 168lbs

    Body Fat 21%

    Hummm … not quite the 154 lbs/14% of my summer riding weight. Too much sedentary winter non-activity (and the odd bowl of ice cream)

  • First swim of the year

    I went swimming last night at Ballard Pool for their Master’s swim class. An hour is a long time in the pool going back and forth and my feet started cramping during some of it. I was doing the ‘B’ workout and even then had to cut some parts out.

    One of the drills is just using your legs to kick while holding on to a board. I seem practically stationary doing this so obviously some work to do.

    One interesting thing I found was that I was averaging 20-21 strokes per length initially but once I started focussing on reducing that I got it down to 17 or so which one would think must be more efficient.

    A long way to go before I swim 1.2 miles in open water later in the year!

  • First ride of the year

    I headed out on Sunday for a ride with SIR, a 52 mile “steady state” pace. Unfortunately a steady pace averaging 16.5 mph after a couple months off the bike did not translate into an easy ride for me 🙂 I ended up being dropped on the way back from our out and back to Flaming Geyser Park. The pace lifted a bit and I wasn’t able to hold onto the draft (then the wind hit me and pow off the back of the pack I went).

    So it was a couple of miles on my own before thankfully Peter and Amy came back to find me before my memory of the turns to take failed me. I rejoined the waiting pack after a couple more miles (queries as to whether I’d had a flat or mechanical problem were answered by “engine issues” i.e. me). I managed then to hang on until the finish.

    Anyway it was great to be out (ahead of our evening snowfall) and a good motivator to get back in shape so that these rides are indeed easy training rides.

  • New Year – New training goals

    So with the start of 2009 it’s time to start laying down some sporting goals for the new year.

    I’ve decided on the Lake Steven’s 1/2 Ironman in August as a primary objective for the year, (1.2 mile swim + 56 mile bike + 13.1 mile run). It’s the main race in the area for this distance and should be a good intro into the sport. It’s also a world championship qualifier so should get some top notch competition to measure myself against. I registered today so am now committed!

    Other secondary objectives which will depend on our growing family commitments are

    1) Completing a Super randonneur series (200/300/400/600k) in 2009

    2) Riding the GoldRush 1200k in July in CA (to finally get a 1200k under my belt)

    3) Running the Seattle marathon in November

    Longer term objectives are a full Ironman in 2010 and a fast PBP in 2011 (Charly Miller) …