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!!