Training has been slowly building in volume these past couple of weeks, and I'm happy that I'm getting outside more-riding indoors just really gets dull!

I've continued running through the winter, and I'm up to a little over 5 miles. My running sessions have been as much at base heartrate as possible, though when I'm going up hills it's pretty difficult to keep it low. Overall it's been pretty interesting to feel the body adjust to this addition to training. The first few times I was out hurt really badly-I mean I could barely walk afterwards. Now it takes about 5 minutes to warm up and then I'm on sort of a familiar easy pace. With spring coming, it will be a challenge to keep running twice per week but I'll really try. It's all about building base fitness through springtime and this is adding to it.

On the bike front, I managed to get 3 hours of base mileage in on a wet and chilly Saturday. I went out and did the Concord-Carlisle loop twice then spun home. The only soul out there was a guy on a TT bike in the rain--that's pretty hardcore!! On Sunday I was out with a bunch of the masters riders from MRC and it was fast as hell--again. I was better able to keep up overall, but the pace on the hills is frustrating. I always thought I was a decent climber based on an ability to drop other friends, but with these guys I'm the one bringing up the rear...I guess my "other friends" are just slower than me!!