I do enjoy a little suffering in my training a few wet, cold windy days during the winter out on the bike or run.  It gives you this great sense of accomplishment surviving a long day in the crud and let's face it there are few things better than a hot shower after a long cold day.  At a certain point in the spring it's time for the clouds to part, the sun shine down and to be able to begin to worry about getting too warm instead of getting hypothermic.

I've now officially had it with the weather.  It's mid April and the forecast for the weekend is snow here in Seattle, enough is enough.  I'd go back to Hood River this weekend but the forecast is no better there.  My only hope is that it stays dry for my long ride on Sunday.  To give you an idea how bad it is we're 10-12 degrees below our average this time of year every day and I did my first open water swim last year on April 21st (yeah it was refreshingly cool but it was above 50 degrees), at this rate I won't be in the lake until the end of May.

I headed south to Hood River, Oregon last weekend as the forecast was for warmer temps, it was forecasted to be nice in Seattle but frankly I don't trust the weather here this year, so I went for the sure thing.

Saturday I did a 5 hour ride heading out with just knee warmers and arm warmers and sans gloves at 8am.  There was a lot climbing in the first hour, followed by a mind bending switchback laden 5 mile descent to The Dalles at over 31 mph avg and a max of 49 mph.  After a casual cruise through The Dalles I did my 20 mile hard effort on fifteen mile road.  It's a surreal ride the road seriously looks like it's going downhill at a 2-3% grade but is in fact an uphill grade where you're lucky to top 18 mph with the pedal down.  After 10 miles you hit the turnaround and then the fun begins with averages above 25 mph back to town.  Back through The Dalles and on to Rowena where I did three intervals up and down the climb to Rowena Butte.  It's 2.2 miles of perfectly even 7.5% grade and I love this climb, I got progressively faster each interval by 10-15 seconds which is great at the 75 mile mark of the ride.  Next I rode back to Mosier, there is a lot of slightly downhill riding in this section but this was the first time I've ridden this ride without fighting the famous gorge winds, normally I'm lucky to average 15 or 16 mph working my ass off but today there was no wind and got to enjoy the 8 miles ride at a 25 mph average.  My final few miles I did the easy spin back to Hood River.  The temps topped out in the low 80's which was heaven.

Sunday I did a very comfortable 90 minute run on the twin tunnel trail and actually ran negative splits.  It was great running comfortably for 90 minutes at 7:30/mile pace and I feel like my run form is finally returning after being absent for several years.

This weekend I'm expecting a tough couple days with the weather and next weekend I'm supposed to be in Coeur d'Alene for my long training weekend but I'm just hoping that it warms up or it's going to be a miserable couple of long days.

 
Solid Ride 04/05/2008
 

It's getting to that time t-minus 11 weeks and counting to IMCDA and it's time to start turning up the bike mileage. 

It was yet another cool day but thankfully the rain held off.  I'm really looking forward to not having to put on layers and layers to head out on the bike but not today it was cold and the roads were wet and I really wasn't excited about riding today but consistency and hardwork will mean the difference between giving me a chance to qualify for Kona. 

I headed out early as the forecast was for rain late in the day.  I headed north along Juanita and back to Redmond via the trail before heading out along Lake Sammamish.  I headed up and over the plateau and eventually up to Snoqualmie where I rode the climb up to the falls a couple times (faster each time by 20-25 seconds).  I finished up the ride back up and over the plateau and back along Lake Sammamish and up and over Rose Hill to home. 

It was one of my best rides of this distance not necessarily in time or speed (by no way slow) but in overall consistency in energy level.  The ride ended up being 85 miles and just under 5 hours but my favorite part was the cadence at 91 average and my energy level. 

I quickly transitioned to a 20 minute transition run and felt great.  I threw in some high tempo pace in the middle of the run for 10 minutes and was clicking along at 6:40/mile pace and felt great (if only I feel like this on race day). 

Overall a great day and confidence building workout now I can only hope for some dryer and warmer weather.  Tomorrow my long run (2:20 on the schedule).

 
 

It was a good week of training last week with a great break through in the swim and a strong run and bike this past weekend. 

The end of the week brought cold tempeatures and snow.  The forecast was for more cold and snow on Saturday so I moved my long run to Saturday.  The day ended up being more or less dry but cool but I had a good solid long run.  I did a 2 hour run which covered 16 miles (7:31/mile pace).  The best part of the run was my legs really never got that fatigued feeling and I actually ran a few seconds faster per mile the second half of the run.  All in all a good showing 12 weeks out from IMCDA. 

I had switched things around based on the forecast and the fact that Sunday was supposed to be warming up and drying out.  Sunday morning was downright cold with temps in the low 30's and there had been snow overnight in the foothills.  I waited a little later in the day to head out on my ride and changed my ride route away from the foothills due to the wet and snowy roads.  It was a flatter ride so I was working to keep my cadence high for the entire ride. 

Things were going great as I came around the north end of Lake Washington I was headed towards my option point of heading home to finish up my workout on the trainer or continuing on around Lake Sammamish.  I opted for the extended route as I was feeling good and warm despite the tempeature just above 40 degrees.  As I made the turn back north at the south end of the lake I could see the dark wall of weather headed across the lake from the north.  A few minutes later mother nature opened a can of whoop-ass on me.  A blustery monsoon of freezing rain and hail and what felt like a 5 degree tempeature drop.  Needless to say I was soaked within minutes and no longer warm. 

I arrived at home 40 minutes later freezing and ready for a hot shower but first I had to squeeze the water out of my gloves and socks and dump the water out of my bike shoes.  It was a good ride all in all, 4:30 for 76 miles with an average cadence of 94 rpm.

March goes roaring out like a lion.  The next week is supposed be back to more typical temps in the mid 50's which will feel tropical at this point. 

 
 

After a nice long ride on Saturday (cool and breezy but dry), we've got a return to winter today.  I awoke to a wet snow and rain mix falling from the sky.  It's getting old.

Since getting back from Tucson training has been going really well.  I've been feeling good and keeping to the training schedule and feel like I'm well ahead of where I was a year ago. 

I'm pretty stoked as my new bike frame is expected in a couple weeks early so I should have it built up by the second week in April and I'm expecting my gear from Zoot and Gu in the next two weeks.