I’m trying not to post all my W2W stuff on here — I have a separate training diary that I keep on the back of my door. But today’s ride was kind of interesting. It was the first ride of the “brisk” rides. The training program indicates rides as “Easy”, “Pace”, or “Brisk”. These aren’t really speeds per se, but amounts of effort, with pace being “ride at the pace that you plan to ride at in order to complete the target ride”, and easy and brisk being one or two notches on either side. There’s only one of each non-pace ride each week. (Monday – easy, Wednesday – brisk, plus Thursday – off — though I plan to be flexible on whether I take Thursday or Friday off).

So because I started training on a week that was going to be split up by my trip to Toronto, I didn’t properly do a brisk ride last week, and this was the first time.

I ended up doing a warmup, effortful riding, some work-rest intervals (conveniently delineated by Mountain View’s major streets), some short intervals, more effortful riding, and then a quick cool-down. I think that works out pretty well, better than just pushing myself a little bit for the whole time.

Right as I was getting home, I noticed that I was getting a kind of second wind. I was still tired, but suddenly my body was like “Oh, this is fun. Let’s keep doing this (but not anything harder).” I’m still tired (and my legs are quite tired) but it was nice to notice I could have gone on. That’s what endurance is all about in my mind. Same with the ride several weeks ago that was 38.3 miles total and began with Edgewood — after Edgewood I was tired, but I kept going!

Another thing I noticed is that my right ankle hurts a bit, I think from moving around too much in the shoe, and I really do think I should get my shoes refitted to see if they’re the right size.

In general though, I’m doing well. I’m tireder and hungrier than usual (I’ve been inhaling noodles like nobody’s business), and I find that I sometimes “don’t feel like riding all the way home”, but that’s not new — it’s just that when I feel that way I have to ride anyway instead of copping out by taking the train like I usually would, and then I don’t mind it once I am riding, so it’s all right.

I’m really looking forward to my “off-bike” day tomorrow. And starting to wonder if I’ve gotten myself into too much for Saturday — it’s going to be solid on-the-go from riding (34 miles) to BBQ to coffee to dinner to musical! I’m hoping it’s more awesome than it is exhausting, because it seems likely it’s going to be both.