Training since Last Week

If you haven't followed me in the last week or so on foursquare or twitter or on my Garmin Connect Profile, you can see that I've been busy traveling (working) everywhere and working out very lightly, if anything. It's hard to recover from a 55 mile bike ride then hop on the red eye back to work. Last Sunday, I was mostly mush and tried to run a little on Monday (.87 miles back and forth to the Crystal City Mall in Washington DC) but found out I was still sore so that was a no go. My true intentions were to pick up some daily vitamins from the GNC shop since I left everything back at home. <-- #FAIL

Here is Garmin profile of my ~55 mile ride that I did last Saturday with Trek San Diego. I rode with group B2 but then fell back to B3 then fell somewhere between the groups and ended up finishing on my own. It was a little rainy and I like to think that I performed well during some parts, but once again, near the end, I was faltering a bit and ended up resting too many times.

Ride w/ me this Saturday!

I was thinking of making this an awesome type ride where if you beat me, I have to buy you lunch, but I'm thinking that it might get a bit costly. So instead, I'll buy a round of beers if you come out and ride! My plans for this week are to get re-fitted on my bicycle, and get a quick tuneup (it's been about two years for a professional tune). During the Week 6 ride, I didn't feel that good in terms of positioning on my bike and even had to stop and raise my seat a couple of times. Definitely frustrating. The ride this Saturday is Week 08 of the Spring 2011 San Diego Century Training series sponsored by Trek San Diego and will once again start out at Peet's Coffee in Torrey Highlands. This is a 55 mile ride slated to ride past Top Gun/Mission Valley and include the La Jolla Loop. It's going to be a great morning with temperatures in the low 60s with a slight chance of rain but I'll be crossing my fingers. I'm hoping that the forecast improves but that it doesn't get too hot. Last ride, I ran out of water at 10 miles to go and my Garmin Edge 500 said that it got to around 89.5F!

The full details of the ride can be found here. I'd love to see you out there w/ me and a few of my other friends. And hey, while you are at it, check out my Tour de Cure fundraiser page and support me in my ride. Just head over to http://main.diabetes.org/goto/elijah. Any donation would be awesome!

Trek San Diego Century Training Week 6

I started receiving emails about Trek San Diego's weekly rides but it wasn't until today that I was able to finally participate and ride with the gang. This ride was setup as Trek San Diego's Century Training Week 6 // 45 miles. I invited a few people but when it came down to the final start, it was Matt Krawczak and Brian Dudley that showed up. Granted it was an early 7:30AM start but it was all worth it. I went to sleep a late last night clocking in only 5 hours of sleep, which on a scale of 1-10, only ranked about a 6. Maybe it was the anticipation of the ride or maybe the fact that I ate an entire California Burrito at 12:30am which served as my carb loading.

I woke up at 5:30am without an alarm and couldn't get back to sleep so I just gathered my things, drank some juices, ate a Fiber One bar and headed out. I still felt full but excited and when I arrived at the parking lot, it only got more more energized.

Starting out the ride, we kept a casual pace saving the energy for the climbs that were along our route. An easy pace throughout until we got to those hills. If you click on the map below, you'll be able to to go through the entire route along with my speed, elevation, heart rate and cadence charts along with a temperature chart. I'll rate this ride also a 6 out of 10. I haven't ridden in such a long time and I've been only targeting 1-1.5 hrs so this was a challenge. Good company all around made it a great ride followed by some burger goodness at Islands!

There are more rides coming up so check out the schedule and don't forget, this training is all for my goal of riding the Tour de Cure Century this upcoming May 7th. Support me by donating anything from $1.00 to whatever you can to help and find a cure for diabetes. Click here to reach my Tour de Cure page.