April 14, 2019 to April 20, 2019
Sunday - 2.25 hours bouldering at NE Circuit
Monday - Rest Day
Tuesday - 1.5 hour bike ride (20 miles, 1600 ft)
Wednesday - 1 hour swim (3000 yds) and 5 miles of bike commuting.
Thursday - 18 laps on Mt. Tabor stairs (2400 ft) and 7.5 miles of bike commuting
Friday - 1 hour swim (2,725 yds) and 5 miles of bike commuting
Saturday - 2 laps biking Lost Lake Rd. (54 miles, 6400 ft) and 2 laps backcountry skiing Palmer Snowfield (7.7 miles, 4500 ft)
So. This was a pretty decent week. My swim on Tuesday had me enjoying an entire lane to myself, which made it easy to accumulate fast laps. Thursday involved unseasonably warm temperatures, and since I had not done Tabor laps in a while I decided to put in some time on the stairs to give my leg muscles a non-bike workout.
And then, there was Saturday. Hee hee. Oh boy, I was still feeling those Tabor stairs in my calves and hamstrings when we started our first lap up to Lost Lake at 7am. The early morning weather was cool and the sky was solidly overcast. The sun had not even peeked over the eastern hills when we started, and there was a light, cool wind blowing from Mt. Hood. I think I spent the entire first lap just stretching out my muscles and getting them motivated to climb 3200 ft. Towards the top there was a couple of feet of snow on the sides of the road and it was at least 10 degrees cooler than at the car. The normally speedy descent had to be checked because the upper road was wet from snow melt and quite slick.
The second lap was still tiring but the sun was out and my body was suitably warmed up. According to Strava, my elapsed time was faster the second lap but it did not include my quick bathroom break at the Lola Pass junction. The descent was exhilarating and I may have pushed it a bit on the rolling hills and flats.
Back at the car, we quickly snacked, cleaned up a bit, and packed up for the hour drive up to Timberline Lodge. When we reached Timberline, it was both warm in the sun but chilly if you sat around thanks to a cool wind coming off the mountain. The skin up was steamy though. The sun beat me down a bit and the last thousand feet up to the top of the Palmer ski lift was rough. I actually had to count steps to keep myself moving. The ski down in the corn snow was lovely, if a bit tiring.
After a break for food and water, we started our second lap up Palmer. Tina really wanted to make it a 10K day for elevation, which we estimated required going most of the way back up. More wind had come in with some darker, heavier clouds to the west, which meant this was a chillier lap. By the time we stopped to turn around, visibility had lessened and I had to quickly put on more layers and my warm ski gloves. The corn snow had frozen and it was challenging to distinguish sky from ground, so it was not the greatest fun skiing down.
Being done felt quite amazing and we had a nice dinner at Mt. Hood Brewing Co. before heading to Portland. Solid day of training.