End Of Month

End of January already! Just for fun I went back to add up some numbers... I ran 169 miles this month which was less than Nov/Dec but with being sick and trying to recover from that marathon it makes sense. And it pretty much puts me on track to hit 2016 miles for the year, which isn't a huge pressing goal but seems like sort of a fun thing to shoot for if I can.

I didn't even swim 20K during the whole month. Maybe one of my smallest swim months ever?? GAH. Endurance Corner is hosting another 'challenge' that starts tomorrow... A 2 week "swim game" that I am going to play. Essentially it rewards swim frequency with points per swim... so I'll try to swim a minimum of 2k, six times/week. The way the game works is that to score an extra point for any given swim, I have to get to 5K. I haven't done a 5K swim in I can't remember how long? But if the week goes to plan I'll swim 5k three times this week which might kill me. Lol. If I back off the intensity then I'll better handle the volume. This whole past month, swimming has just completely kicked my ass. Like so so so tired after almost every swim. I'll be interested to see if the giant increase in volume helps that at all? I mean, I expect it to seriously fatigue me in the next 2 weeks but after that I would expect it to get better. So we'll see.

Biked more miles than I ran, but not by much. I rode again today with the small group I rode with last week. Same route, slightly stronger effort today. Avg HR was same as last week but avg power was +7 watts. Progress! If that trend continues then in about 6 weeks I'll be good to go. ;) I am finding that balancing the running I feel the need to do (with 6 more marathons on tap this year) with swimming and riding enough to not feel like shit in both sports is super tough. Tougher than I expected it to be.

Today at our turn around point (Turtle Bay Resort) we saw couple of big buses and a bunch of police cars... Figured it was the Pro Bowl players since they were playing here today (and staying up there at that resort). As we were riding home, a police car drove by then 2 big buses followed by another police car. We were riding single file (4 of us, I was caboose) on a fairly narrow section of road and one of those damn buses buzzed by like a few inches from my elbow. I screamed out loud and then was super pissed off. Seems like the policeman should have seen that and ripped that bus driver a new one. I'm not a football fan but after feeling like my life was endangered today I sort of actively despise them all. I wonder how that would have gone over on the news if fans found out that the team driver took out a group of cyclists on the way to the game? Unfortunately I bet a lot of football crazed fans wouldn't even blink. <Rant over>.

In better news, wow I made the best dessert tonight! I modified a vegan black bean brownie recipe so it included peanut butter... so in the blender (I don't measure anything): a can of black beans, a bunch of chocolate chips, a scoop of peanut butter, some coconut oil, maple syrup, salt, and baking powder. In the oven for like 30min and um wow most decedent dessert ever. I've eaten like half the pan already. Lol. Would go quite well with red wine.