The last couple of months I've been swimming almost entirely with the masters group and made great progress, but have gotten in very little long distance work. Since Thursday's swim got cut short because of lightening and I skipped Friday's ride for the same reason, Saturday seemed perfect for a long swim, even though this was a recovery week.
I headed over to UNF and after a quick 600 warmup (200xswim, kick, pull), I swam for an hour (1:01 to be exact), getting in 2600 yds. Not only was I able to swim constantly for an hour, I used ZERO effort. In fact, I wasn't even breathing hard when I got out of the pool. YEA. Overall, that translates to a 2:33/100m pace, which would put me at a ~1:40 ironman swim: PERFECT. I'll find out how well I can hold that pace in the ocean this coming Saturday.
Saturday night was indulgence time,as Lori and I went to Opus 39 in St Augustine for dinner. There's just something about a chef's tasting menu that makes my mouth water...In this case, there were 5 courses to make my mouth water. Thanks to Christine and Chef Michael for their fantastic culinary creations. We got to enjoy such things as foie gras, scallops, salmon, swordfish, veal, tenderloin, and too many other things to mention. YUMMY!
Funny thing about a 5 course tasting menu. When the food comes out, I look at the portions and think there's no way that it's going to be enough for my ironman sized appetite. By the time we finished with the chocolate truffles - which Michael sent out AFTER dessert - I was begging them to stop bringing food!
Unfortunately Saturday night's pleasure was followed by Sunday's pain - although totally unrelated. Sunday was a three hour brick: two hour bike ride followed by an hour run. The bike ride was supposed to be 80 minutes in zone 2 and 40 minutes in zone 3, followed by the run anywhere in zones 1-3. Of course, I also had to trade the previous nights wonderful culinary delights for Perpetuem and gels (and of course uncrustables).
Since low tide was at 2 PM, I started the ride at 10, so I could run on the beach afterwards. BIG MISTAKE. The ride went okay, and I did stay in zone 2 for the first 80 minutes and zone three for the last 40, but never felt quite right on the ride. Maybe because I was on my old bike after enjoying last week's nice smooth ride on the new carbon fiber Kuota?
In any case, when I got off the bike it was HOT....REALLY HOT....the ocean breeze helped a bit, but I was miserable. Usually for an hour run I'd do 30 minutes out and back. Since I was suffering a bit (actually massively), I did 15 minutes down and back and stopped by my car for some water. At this point, although my heart rate was reasonable (mid zone 3), I had nothing left. Now it was a question of calling it quits, or walking through the rest of the workout.
Well...there's nothing easy about an ironman....so I kept pushing through. Over the next 30 minutes I'd jog for a minute or two, and walk for a couple of minutes. I managed to finish the hour run, getting in just over 5 miles. REALLY slow pace for me, but I'm proud of myself for pushing through the misery and finishing the workout.
So much for a nice, easy recovery week......
9 months ago
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