Week of June 25th

This was a big build week for me in training volume and in addition I also got to play around with some new cool stuff on my bike that I recently purchased. 
First, my week wrapped up with over 155 miles on the bike, 24.5 miles running, and almost 7600 yards (4.3 miles) of swimming.  Interestingly the weekend was very tough on me because on Saturday I biked 80 miles followed immediately by an hour long run featuring hill-repeats.  It was tough because I had to run up a steep incline will for about 3 minutes getting my heart rate up to my threshold.  I then would jog back down, and immediately start running back up the hill again.  Doing this 7 times in a row seemed like eternity especially in the noon heat of the day.  I would rank that as one of the hardest workouts I have ever done because it ended up being somewhere in the neigbhorhood of 6 hours of straight endurance work.  Glad that is over but I still have more fun like that coming up in the future.

Lastly, I wanted to mention some new cool stuff I picked up.  I think the consensus is that most people think the cyclists who wear the rear view mirror clipped to their helmet are quite nerdy.  I have decided to jump on the nerd bandwagon myself.  If nothing else, I wanted to try out a mirror to see how it functioned and whether the benefit was worth the Nerd-Factor.  Turns out the benefit highly outweighs the nerd-factor.  I must admit, the mirror device does look obnoxious, but it allows a wide range of rear vision that provides me with knowledge with traffic creeping up behind me.  Furthermore, I never have to turn around and it makes preparing for left-hand turns a snap.  I don't plan on racing with this on my helmet because surely adds additional drag, but I will certainly continue to use it for all training rides.  Well worth the cost for the additional safety.  HIGHLY recommend it. 

The other item I tried out this week was a $2.99 cue sheet clip.  Any time I create a new cycling route, I often have to refer to my cue sheet for directions and often find myself having to stop and review things.  I saw this cue sheet on Amazon and was skeptical about how well it would function when moving fast.  However, I think I found another winner.  The holder stays firmly on the handlebars and keeps the paper in place remarkably well.  I also thought it might blow all over the place, but it really didn't.  I am now able to easily refer to my directions without ever even having to slow down.  Another great buy IMO.