Week in review July 29-Aug. 4: Ride, run, hang out with family

Bike, run, relax.

It wasn’t a great week for training, but I have good reasons for it. One evening was spent giving a former co-worker a sendoff to his next adventure, and I spent much of Saturday and Sunday with my husband’s family, celebrating a pair of newlyweds and hanging out with relatives in from out of town. It was definitely a week where I squeezed in what I could, cut my losses, and enjoyed the time off.

So although I only did three rides and three runs, all six workouts ended up being pretty good because I had to make them count. I tried another new-to-me Trainer Road workout, and took my road bike outside Saturday for an unintentional 50K. My weekday runs weren’t anything out of the ordinary, but everything felt good and I was able to manage the heat fine. And my husband came with me for a butt-early Sunday morning run before our day got busy, so that was nice to spend a bit of extra time with him.

One sad thing about last week was that the calendar flipped over to August. Schools in my neck of the woods will be starting in a few weeks. I haven’t been to nearly enough barbecues yet this summer, and I really didn’t do any traveling. No, I don’t have kids or teach, but even as an adult the back-to-school season is kind of sad for me. Summer’s over, back to work.

How many times can I play hooky these next few weeks to take my bike out or go ride in the middle of the day? Tempting….

Anyway, my family-filled week of training shook out to:

Bike: Three times, two hour-long sessions on the trainer and another two hours on the road, for just longer than 4 hours total. My 50K (31 miles) road ride was warm but clear and not quite as windy, and I tried riding with my tires at a slightly lower pressure to see if it made a difference. To be determined, but it was still a good day.

Run: Three times, all on the road, for 9.05 miles in a bit less than 2 hours. Nothing terribly special here: One easy run, one slightly faster run, one slightly longer run that ended up being a bit slower on a humid morning with my husband.

Total: Six sessions in a hair longer than 6 hours.

Let’s call it a stepback week with a bunch of fun built in. There will most likely be at least one more family day this week, so I’ll get in whatever training I can and enjoy the rest of it.