09/24/07: A 91.76 deposit into my IM account

As I'm writing this on Monday, I am ever so grateful today is a day off.....I'm wiped after this weekends workouts. Before I get to the workouts, thanks for all of you recent comments....I definitely appreciate them......

Saturday afternoon I headed to the pool, planning on getting in 4,000ish yds. The pool closed a bit earlier than I thought, and the workout became 3100 (1.76 miles):

30x100 on 2'15"

100 cd

Sometimes simple works.....

Sunday was my long ride, planned for 5 hours. I did the Swampman, knowing that my legs would be dead after Saturday's run, and that lots of drafting would be a much welcomed help.

I knew I had to go around 90 miles to get in a 5 hour ride, and the 70 mile and 100 mile groups started off together. For the first 30 miles or so I was in a pretty good sized group, moving along relatively effortlesly at 22 mph or so. When we got to the 70 mile turnoff, only 4 of us kept going....22 in a big group is pretty easy....22 with only 4 of us was a bit more of a struggle....I stayed with the other three until we hit a rest stop at around 50 miles, where we joined up with a few more people.

Leaving the rest stop, the group was going 22+ mph straigt into the wind, and my heart rate started to skyrocket...there was no way I was keeping up that pace into the wind for another 50 miles, so I dropped off the back and hung out on my aero bars for the next couple of hours.

I knew I was going too hard the first 50, and now I was paying for it. I intentionally took it VERY easy coming back, hopefully simulating the kind of riding I'll need to do on Nov 3. I was spinning in a very easy gear, keeping my HR at the top of zone 1 and bottom of zone 2. Not sure about speed, as my computer went bye bye for the rest of the ride...no biggie, since speed is nothing more than a function of cadence and effort (as measured by heart rate).

Nutrition seemed to be working well...every 10 miles or so I stopped for a minute or two to stretch, have a gel, and then continued. Fortunately the course offered me a shortcut back to the start, so I could keep my ride to my planned 5 hours; unfortunately, I got another lesson in mental toughness for the second day in a row.

I got back to the start with 15 minutes to go yet again....As bad as I wanted off the bike, a 5 hour ride is a 5 hour ride, so I turned around and kept going. Total ride time was 5:03 and just a hair over 90 miles.

Since I commited to always running after my long rides, I put my bike back in my car, sipped on some water, and put on my running shoes. I ran for 20 minutes, running for 9, walking for 1, getting in just over 2 miles.

All in all a good weekend of workouts....Stay tuned for the week in review.....