Less than 21 days...
And I am ready to taper. Holy moly after that 124 mile ride yesterday I am toast. It's going to take a lot for me to drag myself to the pool today....
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And I am ready to taper. Holy moly after that 124 mile ride yesterday I am toast. It's going to take a lot for me to drag myself to the pool today....
Comments
A small benefit of this summer's events is that I'm not dragging as much as some of you folks, but I'm tired too.
A couple thoughts:
Cheers,
Wm
William-Excellent advice. I made the mistake of trying a long run in the midday heat to start acclimating, but realized it's too soon for that anyway and it ruined a long run. Run tomorrow will be at 5am. Will be putting on the race day wheels this week. I'm excited, always makes me "feel" faster.
Mike- I have a lot of cleaning on my bike too. I have crusted gunky perform all over the place. I find that simple green does a great job of cleaning the crap off.
I agree with William this is the week to start dressing out the bikes. I'm dusting off my race wheels and riding in style the last few rides.
I'm with Lauren - living my chain , placing it back on the gears and changing a tire is it for me. It's cool Mike that you have mad bike mech. skills!
Scott -I'm feeling it too. Lack of work focus more Tri focus!
http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Green-13406-Aircraft-Precision/dp/B001VXU7OE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408483314&sr=8-1&keywords=simple+green+extreme
Just got out of the pool-skipped the swim last night (shame shame I know-but first day back to the teaching world was exhausting) but had a great swim today. 3800 straight with a 1:40/100 yd average-and it was certainly an all day pace! Love that feeling.
How are the workouts coming this week folks? Gotta love that the midwest is having a heat wave NOW. Should make Thursday's long run fun.
This evening, I was definitely dragging. When I'm tired, I'm REALLY slow to warm up, and it was pretty hot. 85? Anyway, I did the first fast mile only at about HM pace, not TP. that served as decent warmup for the second, where I hit TP, around 6:40...but definitely walked 20 yards after that! Anyway, got it done.
Looks like tomorrow's wko has to be in the morning due to scheduling issues. Kind of a bummer. I tend to do these interval rides in the basement. We'll see how I feel about that in the morning.
On another note, I've been looking for an aero helmet, and pulled the trigger on a giro selector for $120 on slowtwitch tonight - bad idea to plan on racing with this as I have never ridden with it before? Have to drop the TT bike off for shipping on Sunday, so only pre-ride I would be able to get in with it is on road bike with clip on aero bars. Appreciate any thoughts.
tick tock tick tock - raceday is a comin!!
Mark
Mark- Happy Birthday!!! My birthday is tomorrow! Glad to hear your workouts are going good this week. If the helmet feels good on the pre-ride it will probably be ok. I don't wear my aero helmet till race day. You will also have a chance to wear it with your bike in Madison if you go out for a course recon ride after you pick your bike up.
I switched my workouts around last night. I did the bike last night and I'll get the swim and run intervals done today. My daughter is beginning her senior year of high school and we had a swim meeting last night that messed up my whole pool schedule.
I have started making my lists for pre-race packing and thins i need to get done. It is crazy how fast the race is coming!
I too am getting my things together and working on a race week list / plan. I want to avoid what happened to me the other night where I woke up at 1am thinking I needed new brake pads and a chain, Chain was fine, but the rear brake could use a little sprucing so I ordered them on amazon at 1:25... WTH -> Bike goes on the stand tomorrow for a complete pre-race check, cleaning, and rear brake pad installation prior to my Saturday Race Rehearsal ride... lol
Had that same "slow warmup" thing on the bike this morning too. 2 x 15 and ~95% and darn that first one was harder than the second. Thunderstorms so I had to ride in the basement...choice was taken away.
Am running this evening and long run Thursday morning. Because of that, I may take the edge off tonight's run. The long run is more important I think.
I am also starting to get my work stuff in order for race week. Writing lesson plans for a substitute teacher 2.5 weeks in advance is a daunting task, though. I rarely can even plan a week ahead because things change so much! But I'm trying!
Just finished that ride/brick run. Legs felt so heavy-I was extremely thankful it was a short ride day. Contemplating getting my butt out of bed by 4am for the long run tomorrow, but we'll see if that actually happens! I really should though-it's supposed to be hot hot hot here tomorrow.
I had a tough time getting going with my workout today, missed my window to get my bike in by 15 min this morning, work was really busy so I could not get it during lunch, and I ended up working late so I didn't get started when I wanted too. This was shaping up to be a no workout, full of excuses day -> But I will say I am proud of myself for getting it done. My 2 x 15 went pretty well, I always do my Wednesday workout on the trainer since I like the even resistance and constant pressure needed to keep up my power, plus I do not have to contend with stop signs and walkers on the paths and such. My brick run, well all I can say is it was FREAKING AWESOME, seriously my legs felt great, my pace and cadence were good, the temps were just right, I really could have run for hours but I did cut is short because it was getting dark and I was too lazy to get my reflective gear before I started. Combined with the long run tomorrow, I think I did the right thing. I really hope my legs feel this good tomorrow... It is supposed to rain in the morning so I may have to dreadmill it tomorrow for my long run, hoping it does not.
Quite the difference a week can make. This time I'm happy to say my Thru. long run was the opposite of the melt down I had last Thur. Why, even though quite tired- better intentional prep, better hydration pre and during and probably the most important- stuck to my numbers.
Huge confidence boost which is what I needed most going into our last RR this Sat.
Best to all for the rest of this week
Joe
Looking forward to Saturday's last long ride and Sunday's day OFF.
Birthday Brick continued my recent string of bad luck on the bike - getting it all out of the way now. Was kicking some ass, and as I finished first 15' Z4, slowing to turn around, and ran over concertina wire strip in the road; thankfully, it only flatted one tire. Not so thankfully, for about the first time ever, I had forgotten to put the flat kit on the bike. As I was at the end of a lonely range road on an Army base, and I had also left the phone in the truck, I took off the shoes and started the 6 mile walk back to the truck. I got picked up in a 5-ton running chow to folks in the field after a couple of miles, was getting late, so just called it a day.
Ran 12 miles in 1:35 this morning, and prob had the best run of the season, and the best endurance run in some time. Ran 8:00 for first 8, then pushed about a 7:40 for last 4 - and thought I could just keep going and going - pretty sure I could've ran a HM PR this morning. A good bit of the speed has come back, and I am feeling more and more confident about holding a 9:00-9:15 pace for the IM marathon - might be a conservative goal, but I'll drop the hammer at 18 if there is fuel in the tank.
Looking forward to swim RR tomorrow and B/R RR this weekend. Dropping the bike off to get shipped on Sun, so we must be getting close!!
Good luck this weekend team!!
Mark
This week has been a bit harder just because the temps have spiked here (sounds like I am not alone). I live in St. Louis and typically am well used to high temps and humidity at this time of year but like a lot of folks it has been a lot cooler this summer, until now. I had a hard time getting going on the 2x15 ride (though that isn't too out of the ordinary these days for me) and really felt like I was going to melt on the Wednesday run. On the Thursday long run, I was sloshing around I sweat so much and didn't have much to give more in the last 45 than in the first hour which was a little disappointing, though I have been trying to train a bit more geared on heart rate, and with the higher temps and humidity, I did have a higher heart rate for that period. Today's run was a slog as well. I guess this is a good thing just in case it is hot in Wisconsin on the big day I have a few weeks to get used to it, but man it is hurting right now! Long swim this afternoon and then the big day tomorrow...when the temps are projected to be 98 with heat index over 110! I think instead of bottles I may just set up an IV on my bike! Good work everyone, we are almost there!
My RR swim this morning went well.
I did a pull in 68.5 minutes...slightly negative split (30 sec)...and 30 sec faster than the one I did 2 weeks ago. I've never done an IM swim in less than 76, min, so we will see how this goes. I think a wetsuit swim and a pull are pretty equivalent, but no crowd in the pool and no black line at the race...
Weather looks sucky for tomorrow's RR, but I'll get it in!
Good luck everyone on your LAST big day out there! Let's hear how it goes!
last RR went relatively well here. Started out really foggy but still rolled out on same 112 track I did last yr at the same time to be able to compare. Got a lot hotter this time. Had 75 oz of perform 5 power gels and one power bar, 5 salt tabs on bike. Stopped and picked up 32 oz gatoraide and a water for the 112m. Did much better job this yr of riding steady and improved on time as a result. Again I found it really hard to get my pace down to his recommended z1 +30 seems so slow to start but by the end of the hr I was thankful to have at least stayed close. Really going to have to work on maintaining this discipline on race day! Had water and perform at every mile (thanks to my wife "saint" on bike). But overall even with all of that i still lost 3.5lbs. Seems one can't hardly over hydrate on a hot day.
This season's EN training has been really good for me. Kicked it up a notch from intermediate level last yr to advanced this time and was worried how it would shake out but focusing on only the week at hand was the key-learned not to look forward and get mentally down. Here now at the gateway feeling leaner than ever before- 4 lbs lighter than last yr but also more fit. Ready to start sliding into the taper and into the zone. Looking forward to meeting all of you there in person.