HR Weekend.....good for windsurfing not for biking

Headed to Hood River this weekend for a change of scenery for my long ride and training.

Awoke to filtered sunshine, mid 50's and west winds gusting to about 20mph. I headed east on the old Columbia Gorge Highway. Plan was to cross the river at The Dalles and continue east on Highway 14. After crossing the bridge the wind was blowing me 4-5 feet to the left and right and at that point I decided to abandon my trip on highway 14 due to the exposure to the wind and sketchy situation with the number of semi's that frequent the highway. I rerouted and rode a road that heads east from the The Dalles called 8 mile road which winds through this canyon and ends at Highway 197 and is great fun for riding as it's pretty sheltered from the wind, I did the out and back on this road twice which was about 50 miles (it's not actually 8 miles). It's really deceiving as you head east it looks like the road is going downhill but in reality your going uphill which just messes with you mind. The good news is that the return trip is really fast. Heading east I average about 18 mph heading west my average was around 26 mph.

As I headed back through The Dalles towards Hood River I knew it was going to be a white knuckled sufferfest. I was riding into a head/side wind that was blowing 30 mph gusting into the low 40's. Where I would normally be averaging in the low 20's for mph I was only managing 15 or 16. Things got really intersting after climbing up the Rowena butte as I was now riding completely unprotected downhill at 30 mph with swirling 40mph gusts getting tossed around the road a couple of times I got whipped 8-10 feet across the road and it was all I could do to keep the bike upright. This riding sucks physically and more unexpected mentally because your concentrating so hard to keep the bike upright and trying to predict and repsond to the gusts. It was a true white knuckle ride. Ended up riding 126 miles in just 6 1/2 hours.

Closed out the weekend with a nice 50 mile recovery ride (still a lot of wind) and followed that up with a 12 mile run with a 7:15 avg/mile on Sunday before heading back to Seattle.

Overall a good week of training 250 miles on the bike, 38 miles of running and 7 miles of swimming. Just 6 weeks to race weekend and about 4 1/2 weeks till I begin my serious taper. Next weekend the Capital City 1/2 marathon.