I am in condensed training mode for TransIowa. That means I pack riding into short increments of time and then allow my body to recover and then do it again. I rode last night with Greg and we did a cold 30 mile loop with some hills and such and mostly stayed pretty steady. I found a comfortable pace with my gearing to be about 16mph with 18 being doable and 12 being like a crawl. That's a good place to be for Iowa because if I can't push at least that gear, then I have no business trying since I wouldn't make the time cut. So now I just have to ensure I am strong enough to push that for the long haul. I rode to work this morning (about 20 miles) to round out this concentrated effort. Now I will take 2-3 days off before doing it again.

My theory on this form of training is that this will teach my body to recover for another effort as well as to push myself in a somewhat fatigued state. The longish rest time between is good for recovery so both my body and mind get stronger (mainly by refraining from burning out my interest). We'll see how this goes.

My beer is trucking along with its fermentation. I will probably end up moving the stout to a secondary fermenter on Friday or Saturday, at which time I will start my second batch, an effort at an ESB. I kind of merged several different recipes to make up my own. Kind of a shot in the dark, but it should produce good beer, even if it isn't exactly within the realm of an ESB. We'll see. I will allow the stout to ferment in the secondary fermenter for probably 7-10 days before bottling. Then is will be 2-3 weeks before it is ready to drink. So in roughly 4 weeks, I will have some of my own beer to drink. Pretty exciting.

In the meantime, I received my bi-monthly shipment of microbrew beers that my employers ordered for me for Christmas. So 3 each of 4 different beers that I can't get around here will do nicely to fill in that 4 week gap (along with the Portland brews I still have from my trip out west). Please don't feel sorry for me, I will survive.