April 6 – 12, ROP

Total: 16 hours
Swim: 9km
Bike: 11 hrs 21 minutes
Run: 1 hr 35 minutes
Strength: 45 minutes

This was different than my typical week of training in that I was nursing an injury to my lower legs and needed to reduce my running volume. Unfortunately running wasn’t the only thing that was low on volume as I missed one of my swim workouts and only managed 45 minutes in the gym working on core strength. On the flipside, cycling was the focus for the week and I got in some of the best riding ever.

I’m happy to report that my lower legs are healing up nicely with the rest, ice, massage and a little vitamin I. I was tempted to stray from the plan and put in a little run this morning (but didn’t) which would have given me 4 days in a row of running. We’ll ramp it up slowly though the first half of this week and then end strong with some faster running and a 90 minute long run at the end of the week. I’ve been a little apprehensive about my run fitness going into Langley on the 25th since there will be some very fast runners in the field.

I actually managed one swim last week in my wetsuit in the pool. I didn’t look too foolish since the heater and pump have been on-again off-again broken for the last few weeks. Regardless of the heater situation I’ll be wearing it a few times this week and next to get ready for racing in it. There was a noticeable amount of fatigue in my shoulders from the added resistance on recovery and I’m hoping to build a little specific fitness in that area. I must confess that I missed a swim workout last week. We went to visit my folks on Friday at there lake house outside Augusta and I just didn’t have the cajones to get the water to do my distance workout.

I had an awesome ride on Saturday with JB and some of his crew from the North East (part of Columbia). With this being a cycling focused week I jumped on the opportunity to ride a hard century with tons of climbing called the ROP (Ride of Pain). Unfortunately my Garmin’s memory reached capacity at mile 86 since I hadn’t cleared out the history in a while. I have another computer on the bike but didn’t start it until about a mile into the ride when we got out of the neighborhoods. So no complete data from me, but from what I have … Garmin: Distance 86 miles, time 3:59:57, Average Speed: 21.5, Average HR: 140, Climbing: 7097 ft. … Other computer: Distance: 101.46, Time: 4:42, Average Speed: 21.55. Jeff sent out some numbers (that I used for my log) which were: Distance: 103.6, Time: 4:51, Average Speed: 21.36. Jeff also advertised the ride as 5000 ft of climbing which actually seemed a little shy to me. There were rollers, rollers, and more rollers … big rollers, small rollers, long rollers, short rollers, mentally-challenging rollers, scenic rollers. Needless to say we KILLED the Ride of Pain! I’d say we have the right to call ourselves the “Pain Killers”. There was definitely some pain involved but mostly from a silly oversight (haven’t ridden long since November) like failing to use chamois cream, body glide or other type of friction reducer on the nether regions. Those last 14 on the rough pavement weren’t the most comfortable miles of the ride. We finished it off strong and jogged two miles on the cushy trails behind Jeff’s house. Nice!


If you have ability to make it to Spartanburg on Saturday I would encourage you to run the Zebra’s Do Exists 5k to help support a local family in need.

Train well