Sunday, November 27, 2016

A grounding and stabilising week at home

Sunday: Bradley Woods Cyclo-cross 5.6 miles, 43 minutes 30s

Much as I'm looking forwards to cyclo-cross today, I'm also yearning for the day when I can go for a long ride on a Sunday - or generally doing whatever I feel like.

To be fair, I started off feeling positive.  Then I got stomach cramp and had the worst start ever with 5 people passing me in the first 5 minutes.  Once Lynn came past I relaxed and even considered quitting the pain was so bad.  Thankfully, that got rid of the stomach cramp and I went on to regain five places, one of which was a place on the podium as second FV40.

It was a good day.

Saturday: Kind of a rest day.

Washing bikes from last weekend's muddy cyclocross AND swapping the curtains from downstairs to upstairs so there's no more mould trap below the windowsill.  The upstairs curtains have now been sawn off and will soon be replaced by new ones when I get around to making them up.

Friday: Ride to work and back - 11.3 miles, 66 minutes

So sick of driving now and it had stopped raining and being shit and turned into quite a pleasant morning.  

I left my house and turned up the hill and felt the satisfying out-turn of the weight training earlier in the week - every pedal stroke carrying me further up the hill than usual.  The ride in was lovely.  

I didn't feel like riding home in the daylight around 4pm.  I hadn't even recalled that it was Black Friday and Meadowhall would be hell so I'm glad I worked through, into darkness, completed the task I'd set myself to do on Friday and eventually left around 8:30pm.  Thankfully the traffic had died down and I mostly had a pleasant ride over the hill (avoiding all the boy racers) and climbed seamlessly up to home.

In retrospect I should've left at 4 anyway and taken the long ride home but it's already been a really long week.

I got to bed - obviously late - and climbed grumpily into bed.  TSK had discovered mould that had grown up the curtains, along the wall and down the back of the drawers where all our clothes live.  I couldn't sleep with wheezing and got up and went to sleep on the sofa, where I stayed from midnight till around 6am.

Thursday: 15 mile turbo 51 minutes. 3.5 mile run 32 minutes

Had a meeting at work that started at 9am to tell me about how to avoid stress.  I was stressed because someone made me miss my yoga class.

They only gave us 45 minutes for lunch, despite me asking for longer so I went for a run anyway and walked in 15 minutes late and sweaty but no longer stressed.

Managed to stretch the working day to 6:24pm and still arrived at STC Turbo in time to wait for the Beavers to finish their evening Beavering. Some satisfying spinning drills followed my more intense strength work - 9 minute intervals now and I did it properly instead of messing about.

Wednesday: 1 mile swim , evening weights

Back to the gym in the car as the rain eased off but I still felt a bit soft.  45 minutes to swim a mile broken down into 400m sets - with a couple of 150m sets towards the end.  It felt much better nursing my way through it like that.  Every set was more controlled.  I was still tired at the end but looking forwards to gluing it all together into a successful set one day.

The only day of the week I finished on time so I went in the loft to do weights whilst waiting for TSK to return from whatever he'd been up to.  Upped the reps and some of the weights.  Mainly felt smug.

Tuesday: Yoga

Starting easy, right?  With a trip to the gym on the way to work and an intense breathing session to build lung strength.  With all the racing I do on weak legs, I think my brain might ooze out of my ears if my lungs get any stronger.

It's a problem with yoga, although I love it I never really know what I'm going to get from the classes but occasionally I go to one where I learn something new and very useful.

Monday: Rest day

Cyclo-cross was tough on Sunday and Monday was pissy wet.  I've hardly been at my new job a week and I needed some time in the office to process all I had seen, talk to some people, plan.  It turned into a week.

Summary 

Swim: 1mile
Bike: 32 miles 
Run: 3.5 mile

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