A Mackinaw Peaches Day

I had a great day, and I've come up with a term for it- it was a "Mackinaw Peaches Day." Seinfeld fans know what I'm talking about. For those that don't, or those that want to see the skit again, click here:

The day started with a two hour trainer ride. My goal was to include a one hour TT effort and average over 240w. I took that from TrainingPeaks WKO+ which showed that my best one hour effort since August was 235w. Now don't get me wrong- two hours on the trainer and a one hour TT both fit squarely in the category of serious misery. But after lots of intervals recently, I felt a desire to crank this out. After 25 min of warm up, I started in. My countdown timer went off every 10 minutes, getting me to stand up for about 2 minutes. This went on...and on....and on.... for an hour. I hated it after 15 minutes. I moved the towel to the side occasionally to check on my effort, and generally saw it between 240 and 260, so I thought I was doing fine- not feeling fine, but doing what I set out to do. As it turns out, I averaged 247w. The only single day that was better since 1/1/09, including races, was the Crank the Kanc TT last May. Three other days were within a few watts, including Mooseman which registered 246w. So this was one of my best long steady-state rides ever. Given that last week was my first week this season with more than 2.5 hours of biking in a single week, I'm thrilled. Woot!

After the ride I went for a short 3 mi. run with our weimaraner in the warm weather (38*). I didn't worry at all about the pace, and didn't hit the first mile until about 8:15. But near the end, still without effort, I was down to about 7:10.

I then moved on to a great breakfast sandwich- two eggs, salami and american cheese on oatmeal bread. While I'm on the subject of food, I finished my smoked mussels for lunch, and had a great homemade clam chowda' for dinner.

This afternoon I caught lightning in a bottle when Leah asked to "build something" out in the garage. We had a great time designing and building a rack for Nick's snowboards. I got her to use her math, taught her about countersinking, and she was a master with the drill. After a while she moved on to her own project- I'm not sure what it is, but it was all hers. We both had a great time.

Then the two of us went to the basketball game between the school where I grew up, (Cape) and where we live now (Falmouth). This was the third game between them this year, splitting the previous two, which were each other's only losses of the season. Falmouth won, sending them to the state title game. While I won't admit it too loudly, I was pulling for Falmouth. I will say, however, the Cape fans are far more enthusiastic.

Today wrapped up a huge training week for me. For a couple of years now, I've made this week a sort of "training camp" with lots of volume. I find it vaults me to a new level. I'll probably put in a few more this year, but always 6-8 weeks apart. I started on Monday, a holiday, with a two hour ride and 3 mile run. My elbow and swimming are improving, and I put in three 1,500 yard days, still without any intensity. I've also "graduated" from PT. Total hours were 10:45, about 50% more than what I've been doing. Biking went from 2.5 hrs to 6.2 hrs. Next week I'll take the volume back down, somewhere between this week and what I was doing.

To be honest, this electronic age (blogging and FB) acts as an incredible motivator. It seems like everyone around me is training really hard and already putting up some good early results. I feel more pressure from folks around here than I do thinking about Worlds.

"The Mackinaw peaches, Jerry, the Mackinaw peaches!"