A.M. - Today was supposed to be the CF Cycle For Life century ride that I was going to do with a few buddies. But Monday night I got a call from one of their reps indicating that it was being postponed because there was some other 'santioned event' that was using much of the same route (great planning guys!). They've postponed it until September 28th, but since SGM is the following week, I won't be riding it. Oh well.
Ended up doing an 85 mile solo ride. Rode up Big Mountain (via Wasatch Blvd, Emigration) and then back down and out to the Chevron at South Mountain and home via 1300 E. Good ride. Felt good. There were sure a lot of folks out running and riding bikes in Emigration. Can't blame 'em; its a great place to ride/run. I rode with a small pack of guys for a few miles going up Emigration, then gave them a free lesson going up Little Mountain and Big Mountain :). As I was going up Emigration, I saw Fritz by Ruth's Diner (looking as fit as ever and ready to burn up the roads). Fluid-wise, I made the entire ride on two bottles; not a terribly smart thing to do, but I felt fine.
This will serve as a good training ride for Ultimate Challenge and LoToJa. I ended up with 190 total cycling miles in four rides this week...not as good as what Clyde is doing for his LoToJa training :), but the highest cycling mileage week I've had all summer. Hit all 4 of the big canyons on the eastside of the Salt Lake Valley this week: Millcreek (Monday), Little Cottonwood (Weds), Big C (Brighton only; Friday), Emigration/Big Mountain (today). Still not truly enough for a good LoToJa training regimen, but its similar to what I was doing last year and, combined with my running, should be enough to get me through the event.
Injury status: Woke up and the back/buttocks felt tight. I could 'feel it' during parts of the ride (not painful, but there). I'm hoping that the cycling isn't damaging it more... It's my lifeline right now so I'm going to pretend that it isn't. It's afternoon now and it feels okay; the best it has since before it happened. That said, I did drug-up on a couple Ibuprofens a couple hours ago for anti-inflammatory purposes. We'll see what a complete day of resting does for it tomorrow and I'll assess things Monday morning. If I had to guess, I don't think I'll be ready to run Monday. But I'm going to be optimistic and this hiccup will resolve quickly.
The next couple of weeks are going to suck at work, so I'm leary of how my training is going to go. We're doing a cutover to a new ERP system effective August 1st and there's a lot of stuff that needs to happen between now and the end of the month and then troubleshooting the first part of August. Some weekend workdays and long, late hours are in the forecast. I'll be lucky if I can break away for any evening rides. Some shorter weekday lunch ride may be my only option. Pardon my self-pity... | 