Racing Without Fear

A week out from Louisville and I've finished my easy taper weekend. A 40 mile ride and roughly 6 mile run one day and then a ~50 minute open water swim followed by a 30 mile ride. Not too bad. The legs are starting to feel ready. I am getting excited.

Mentally, I have been somewhat schizophrenic lately. By that I mean one minute I am feeling like I am going to rip the course up and the next, I am nervous about blowing up. Not sure about my pacing. If I want to shoot for a good spot in my AG, I need to go out on the run, see how I feel, and push the pace a little bit. That's quite scary. On the other hand, in training, I've done hard 50 mile rides, followed by 22 mile runs in well under 3 hours with averages of <7:30 per mile. Based on the fact that I didn't blow up on those runs, even after going a bit harder at the beginning, I think I'll be OK.

So based on that, I have decided that I am just going to put it out there. I'm not going to worry about what time I can put up; I only going to focus on what I can control. My nutrition plan, my pace, my effort, etc. So I am going to focus on that and race without fear. When I get to the end, I will know that I put it all out there.

Rust

Even though I took 2.5 weeks off swimming to get over this little bout of shingles, I think I have actually shaken off the rust.

Today, I did a fairly high-intense swim and was doing 200s fairly easily in the 3:0x range. In fact, in my 2nd set, I hit 3:03, which is pretty decent for me. Plus, I've done 3 open-water swims in the last week or so and will be doing another lengthy one this Sunday. I think I'll be fine for this swim in Louisville. 10 days to go...

Taper Time

The one to go portion didn't work out as well. On Saturday I went off on my ride, but cut it short. Way short. I was going to shoot for 110 or at least 100, but stopped after 20 miles. I just didn't have it in me - so it is now officially taper time!!! The hard work is done and now it is rest and recover prior to the race. Because I canceled early, I then was able to ride the bike trail with my family. Initially, I was pulling the kids in the trailer on my mountain bike, but once I asked if my wife wanted to pull them for the exercise, she was like, "yeah!!" Turns out she thought my ego would be bruised if she was pulling them and I said - "no way, I am happy to let you pull them." So anyway, after she started pulling them, I trailed along behind her and could barely keep up on the little small risers on the bike trail. I definitely need rest.

Today, I did an easy open water swim and a 6 or so mile jog. Tomorrow, I am going to take off and have a massage scheduled - that should be interesting.

One Down, One To Go

I did my long run today and made it through 21.7 miles. After the 2nd attempt at a tempo pickup, I decided my legs were better off if I stuck with a long endurance effort and skipped the pickups. I did one loop around the lake and then swapped out my 2nd bottle for Coke again, which I think is really working well. Then I did about 10.2 more miles for a total time of 2:54. I think today, I would've been just barely above a 3:30 marathon. I also did a 1.2 mile open water swim and a 2-hr ride prior to this, so it was a good, hard workout. Tomorrow is my last hard ride - I'm scheduled for 110, but my instructions are to listen to my body so if I'm not feeling good, I'll cut it short. Or I'll skip the 8-mile run afterwards.

This block of training has been solid, though. 4 weeks in a row of good hard work and I am really feeling it. a 20-miler and 3 22-milers by foot and several 100+ mile rides with runs afterwards. Approaching the home stretch...

Almost There

Had to cut my bike intervals short this morning because I just didn't have it in me. However, on the way home tonight, I made it home in a new record 1:14:42 and made it up Serrano hill in under 8 minutes and have only done that 1 other time. Hopefully, I can get something out of my weekend workouts. If not, I will cut them short.

Trying to get the last little bit out of my body and then it will be time to shut it down and taper.

18 days to go...

Hard Weekend - Part II

Today I did the 2nd half of my hard weekend. 119 mile ride (only 3000' of climbing this time) and a hard, 6-mile run afterwards that had about 350' of hills.

I started from my house and rode down to Folsom, then up to Beals' point. From there, I did the entire bike trail (32 miles) to Old Sac and then over to Davis. For the return trip, I reversed the route. It took my about 6:25 of ride time and since there are water stops on the bike trail, I didn't have to stop to buy water, but I did have to stop and pee twice.

In any case, I treated it like a race-rehearsal to see how I would do with nutrition and pacing. The nutrition was not bad - Perpetuem and Hammer Gel and Water and Endurolytes. Seemed to do fine because I had energy at the end for the hills back to my house. My power numbers over the hours broke down like this:

1 - 144 watts avg / 18.9 mph
2 - 177 watts avg / 19.6 mph
3 - 173 watts avg / 19.2 mph
4 - 170 watts avg / 17.9 mph
5 - 190 watts avg / 20.0 mph
6 - 181 watts avg / 17.6 mph
6+ - 190 watts avg / 13.0 mph (big hills back to my house)

Overall it was 118.6 miles and my average was 173 watts and 18.5 mph. It was a good race rehearsal. I'm not sure exactly how fast I'll be going in L'ville, but my power target seemed to be decent. After the ride, I did 6.1 miles in 44.5 minutes with some decent hills. It felt OK, I was a little fatigued, but not bad and I think I probably could've kept that pace for a while if it were flat. I did have a little issue with my hammy again, but I think with a good taper and proper race management, it will be fine.

I may even be able to push the bike a little more, but will probably stay very conservative because I'd like to have a really good marathon this time around.

Hard Weekend - Part I

This morning, I did my hard ride / long run combo for the weekend. I started at the Hatchery and headed up towards Loomis and Newcastle, then to Auburn and back down to Folsom. It was 49.5 miles with somewhere between 2000 and 2500 feet of climbing (I forgot to check before I started the run portion). I averaged 19.1 mph and 204 watts. My normalized power was 223 watts for a VI of 1.09. It was a pretty hard ride.

Then, my training plan called for a 22 mile run with the first 13 at 7:20 pace or better and whatever I could manage for the remaining 9 miles. When I got off the bike, I was a little nervous about the pace, but for the first 5.5 mile portion of the first out and back, I got into a good rhythm. I was holding the pace fairly well on the way back to the car, too. Then I got to the car and swapped Coke for Gatorade in my 2nd bottle and kept on motoring. My mile splits on the run were as follows:

1 - 7:10 - HR 141
2 - 7:10 - HR 141
3 - 7:09 - HR 142
4 - 7:22 - HR 140
5 - 7:19 - HR 141
6 - 7:18 - HR 142
7 - 7:36 - HR 142 (missed the marker)
8 - 7:03 - HR 142
9 - 7:19 - HR 141
10 - 7:23 - HR 144
11 - 7:23 - HR 143
12/13 - 14:43 - HR 143 (missed the 12 marker completely)
14 - 7:21 - HR 145
15 - 7:23 - HR 146
16 - 7:30 - HR 148
17 - 7:45 - HR 145
18 - 7:31 - HR 144
19 - 8:03 - HR 149
20 - 7:48 - HR 149
21 - 7:53 - HR 162 (I think my HR monitor wasn't working well for this mile)
22 - 7:38 - HR 160

There are a few hills on this route in the 2nd half, which caused me to slow a tad. Then, around mile 18, my right hamstring was touch and go and I wasn't sure if it was going to completely seize up. I started popping the salt pills and managed to do OK and hung on to an ~8 minute pace for the rest of the run. The idea behind this workout was to see where I could pace myself for the marathon without blowing up completely. I think it helped me get an idea...

Midweek Intensity / Back in the Pool!

Well, this week's intensity has really kicked my butt. Tuesday night I did a track workout that was back-to-back 3K TTs (after a ~5 mile warmup). That was fun.

First one I did in 10:29, which is 6 seconds off my PR. I started fairly conservatively but tried to dose out the effort in a way that I had a little more left at the end than I did last time, but it turns out I was a tad slower. Last time I went out really hard and just tried to hang on...

After the first one, I recovered for about ~8 minutes and did it again. This one I did in 10:45, which I considered to be pretty good since I was already really fatigued. Overall, I did about 10.5 miles on the evening.

Then, the next day I rode to work and on the way home, did my interval set of 12, 10, 8, 6, and 4 minutes at E5 (hard, race pace or higher) effort. The first one I did on the way South down the canal, which was like a wind tunnel! I was putting out 280-300 watts and only going 18 mph. Then, on the 10 min interval on the way back, at the same power, I was going 25-27 mph and when I got to the 8 minute interval on the North side of the canal, I hit almost 30 mph and made it down the entire canal in 8:20, which is a new record! I finished the ride home with 2 more intervals and was so cooked by the end almost didn't make it up the hill to my house. It's about a 560 ft climb over 1.2 miles, so it's a significant hill, but still...

Then this morning, I was back in the pool! I did 3100 yards and my main sets were supposed to be 4x250 on 4:08 and 5x100 on 1:37. After 2.5 weeks off of swimming, I could only do the 250s on about 4:15-4:18 and could only do the 100s on about 1:42-1:45 or so. I've lost a bit in the water, but hopefully I'll be able to get it back in the next 2 weeks or so, although I won't be back in the water again until Monday and Tuesday of next week.

This weekend is another huge weekend - more on that later.

One Final Big Push

This past Sunday I did a huge ride - 110 miles with 9000' of climbing. I had always wanted to try to do the lake loop twice and since my schedule had a 110 on it, I thought I'd give it a shot. I even had to extend it a bit up towards Forest Hill. And surprisingly, I wasn't completely flattened by this ride. For the first 50 miles, I rode with some friends of mine on a tandem so that helped me temper the effort a bit. I averaged 15.4 mph and about 167 watts for the first 50. For the second loop with the extension, I averaged like 16.7 mph and 183 watts. The wattage doesn't really represent how hard the ride was, though, with all that climbing. Then afterwards, I put on my running shoes and did 8 miles in 59:30 or so. I felt pretty good throughout, which was very encouraging.

Now these next 2 weeks will be my last push to IM Louisville. I'm doing an over-distance ride this weekend and a 22-mile run, with a 50 mile ride preceding it. Should be quite the weekend. Throw in some more track work on Tuesday, some serious bike intensity Wednesday AM, and it will make for a pretty tough week! Then, I'll repeat it for one more week if I can, but we'll see how the body responds. This past week I did 260 miles riding and 51 miles running and racked up 22+ hours of training. These next 2 weeks, if I can hang on for the final extend week, will probably come close to that. My motivation is still pretty good, but the long rides are definitely a grind!! I am getting VERY excited for the race, though. I can't wait to see what I can lay out there on the course!!