Let It Roll
Training Files 002
It’s been a while since my last post; life was in the way. But I’m working on correcting that. Today’s training update is the first visible step.
I’ve made decent progress since dialing in a bike fit that felt good enough for a proper road test.
My rides during the last eight weeks brought many smiles to my face and helped my body and mind to adapt to the activity and the position on the bike. Things have gone so nicely that I’m beginning to warm up to letting the runner in me chill on the backseat for the time being. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop running, but the remainder of this post will shed more light on the matter.
I navigated two disruptions in those weeks.
My decision to ease off in the first week was the first. It coincided with weather ups and downs, which made it easy to let a ride here or there go. It also included a mechanical.
No, the bike was fine. The heart rate monitor decided it was time to die.
Most of the warranty waiting game fell into this period. My watch’s readings had to suffice.
As a result of the equipment failure, I now have a spare strap (the sensor broke, even though the straps are usually the weak link), which should push the next time I have to think about a replacement well into the future.
Instead of giving a blow-by-blow summary of the last eight weeks, I’ll focus on highlights.
I tried doubling in the second week: running in the morning and cycling in the evening.
It’s funny. I prefer to run early. But I’ve come to enjoy cycling at the opposite end of the day.
The longer run that week was a 45-minute route with decent elevation gain and gravel valley paths. Even though the GPS was useless in that section and punished me with less than favorable (or fair) data, I couldn’t have cared less. In the words of my training journal, the run was “good fun.”
The following four weeks had ups and downs.
Training was going well, really well. The only complaints were a spreading madness, from construction around every corner (I remember one ride where construction dead ends stared me in the face five times and barely 10 minutes passed without signs of construction going on) to people’s decision-making skills in traffic participation.
I even enjoyed the warmth. Riding in the 30 C early evening sunshine never felt this good. I could do without the morning humidity, to be fair. Running in 95% humidity sucks the life out of me.
As the graphs show, I steadily increased my cycling duration and enjoyed a “beautiful morning ride” at the end of the fourth week, the first two-hour ride since returning to the sport.
On the running side of the business, I began varying paces again.
The final ride before the second interruption came in a stressful week. “My happy place for the day,” is the line from my training journal that best describes the 100-minute loop to the Rhine River.
Sadly, it came just in time for some summer sickness to strike, handing me eight days off.
I returned with an “issue free” ride, aside from realizing that eating while cycling is a skill I need to work on. Downing a serving of fuel during a short stop isn’t quite sitting with me too well. Hands-free adventures are something for the future. Maybe I’ll have an answer next time.
Despite some food issues, the ride to the northern parts of the Rhine River was one of the best ones I’ve had so far. Despite very summerly temperatures, the route was a delight, and the bike rolled effortlessly. That was fun!
The longest bike session to that point happened in almost chilly Sunday morning conditions. I had high hopes for some picturesque fueling stops, but the map of the 50 km loop, which crossed the Rhine River twice and brought me past two lakes, promised what reality couldn’t deliver.
Finding balance in multi-sport training is a difficult path.
There has to be less volume in each discipline. The week doesn’t miraculously expand just because one fancies more than one sport.
As I wrote before, I put a pin in my running plan. As a result, I hovered around the 1–2 hours per week mark for the last few months instead of building up to weekly volumes I handled in the past.
For this past week, I relaxed it even further.
I enjoy cycling so much that I didn’t want to risk anything, and I’ve had some lingering muscle tightness in my upper legs. It could be the result of the longer runs recently. It could be strength training “experiments,” “just life” getting in the way, or a series of extensive photo walks.
The bike it’s most likely not because the time on the bike couldn’t feel better, and it gets better while continuing to ride. Wherever it came from, it’s getting better. So all’s fine. Some mysteries are worth keeping mysterious.
The highlight of the week was a lovely and slightly faster evening ride down to Baldeneysee, a reservoir of the Ruhr River near the 19th-century Villa Hügel (once the home of the industrialist Krupp family). The first half hugged the Ruhr River after clearing Mülheim’s city center. The second half started with a long-ish (for this area) but easy climb and concluded with a flowy gravel path back north.
And that leads me to the bottom line of these last two months: the enjoyment on the bike has surpassed the enjoyment I get from running.
It’s an easy decision to relax about running and spend more time on the bike. I won’t let go of running, but I won’t be trying to push and increase mileage. I’m happy to treat it as a supplement to cycling. All other ambitions and motivations can wait until I can accommodate a more “just” balance between the two.
