Lots been going on lately, going to work every day of course, doing housework, riding my bike are at the top of the list. All have thus far presented no major challenges and any stress of the first two are muted by the release on the bike.
The biggest accomplishment on the bike this month has been the Drumlin Dominator that Dave and I did last Friday, 109 miles of fun on the Glacial-Drumlin trail from Waukesha to Cottage Grove and back. I have never done the full length of the trail before but it was great, with one exception where a section of the trail was under construction and it was very loose and bumpy, a bit like Paris-Roubaix....well, maybe not quite that bad. The length of the trail itself has all the amenities, there are bathrooms and water stops quite often and at the end of the trail in Cottage Grove there is a Subway only about a mile and a half away, along with other restaurants, including one right at the trail head. We chose Subway, it seemed healthiest, and it definitely tasted great. That day it was the best sub I'd ever had, it definitely hit the spot, and kept me going on the way back. We managed to do the 109 miles in just over 7 hours of ride time, not super great, but we took our time, and you have to remember that this is crushed gravel/packed dirt and we did it on trail and cyclocross bikes respectively. My ass hurt quite a bit that night and the next day, I managed to squeeze in an hour recovery ride on Saturday but stood up quite a bit. Sunday had me back in the saddle for 3 hours with not many issues. This week hasn't been so good though, Tuesday and Wednesday I was laid out with an underlying illness that just made me feel tired and gave me a sore throat, headache, etc., but I'm feeling better now and last night I managed 2.5 hours on the road bike. Tonight I'll be hitting up the bike again for 2.5 to 3 hours after work and then 3 hours again tomorrow. The big day will be Sunday when I do a 6 hour ride to try to get in another century this month, I really enjoy the long rides and the forecast is looking good. I used to do long rides and centuries as the norm for training in my past racing life, so that seems to be coming back now as to what I like to do again. Of course I'm getting proper rest as well, no worries there. Eventually this year I'm going to have to start my intervals and speedwork though as racing is on the horizon, Greenbush (a big maybe), the Whitewater RR, Omro RR, the Insane Terrain Challenge, and Race the Lake are the big events on my calendar for the remainder of the year so it's time to look at the base I have and decide if it's enough to move on to the next step. A couple of more weeks are in order for sure, but I can't take too much more time as those events are nearing pretty quickly.
Other than that, I'm still studying for my American College of Sports Medicine Personal Trainer certification, and will hopefully take the test in July at the earliest, August at the latest. Add that to my USAC Coaching cert which I'm already preparing to upgrade to a level 2 hopefully before the year is over as well, and I'll be feeling pretty good about my abilities to take on some coaching responsibility at some point this year or next year. I'm looking at a few other things as well, but those would be secondary after I complete the two primary objectives.
Just wanted to say that everyone should check out the Tour of America's Dairyland website as well, it's great that a Wisconsin promoter is putting on a race of this magnitude with nice, safe courses (Downer is iffy in that regards) and is even offering the chance to race the possible Olympic course at Blue Mounds, how cool is that? Check it out - http://www.tourofamericasdairyland.com/
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