Rethinking the Plan

Today was spent doing homework, buying a new bike for Monica, setting it up, and rethinking the training plan. On the school front, all I can say is motivation continues to be lacking in this last course of the program. .......and enough about that.

On the bike front, I had bought Monica a bike three and a half years ago to replace an ancient ten speed she had been using for probably twenty years. That old Raleigh was so undesirable that she had left it outside of her apartment in Montreal for a full winter, with the lock through the spokes of the front wheel only, and nobody took it. Montreal, for those that may not be aware, is a major bike theft capital. Anyway, I remember also that when she tried to unlock it in the Spring the lock was seized, so we just took the rest of the bike and left the wheel. I think within two days someone stole the wheel!

To make a long story short, the bike I purchased for her birthday did not really work out. It kept having problems, and finally, after about five flats in the space of two weeks, we decided to replace it. I found her a nice bike, but had to venture pretty far to pick it up. I did so today, and managed to get everything set up except the basket at the back. That's a minor thing... If anyone wants a really shitty bike, let me know! As far as the new one goes, it is inexpensive and rides real nice - perfect for Toronto, where bikes get stolen all the time. Since we both ride year- round to work and back, and pretty much everywhere else, it's imperative that our bikes work well, but are not too nice to be targets for theives. Mine is a total Frankenbike, but Mon needs something more conventional:On the running front, I have been reworking the training plan to take into account the mileage I've missed as a result of my ankle setback. Originally, this week I was supposed to run 11k on Monday, the usual 5k on Wednesday, and then another 10k on Saturday for a weekly total of 26 kilometres. Now, since I missed a week of running my mileage for the last two weeks went down considerably, 14k and 16k respectively. I think it would be unwise to jump straight up to 26k and so I am wondering what to do. I'd like a balance between decent mileage and low risk of aggravating the ankle. For now I plan on 8k tomorrow, 5k on Wednesday, and 10k on Saturday. However, that adds up to 23k, a jump of 7k from this past week's total. What would you do?

In positive news, I procrastinated a bit today looking back at the last month of training and notice that I've progressed quite a bit. No longer does a 5:30ish pace per kilometre spike my heart rate into the mid 90% range! It's getting pretty close to the point where my training runs will be going over the 1 hour mark, and given that when I started 10 minutes was a workout in and of itself I am simply amazed. Of course, I realize that the marathon runners out there do a heck of a lot more, but still it is gratifying. I've never been able to run for that long a period of time before, both due to physical limitations and, for the better part of my life, mental blocks. I used to hate running! So weird to think that now...