Rachel's Very Long RR #2 and thoughts going forward

Today is the perfect first day of taper- gross and rainy out but comfy on the couch :-)  The short version of the background story is work has been crazy and training has been spotty, but I've gotten a few good punches in with the BRP camp in week 12, my own "camp weekend" on the Madison course in Week 15, and then RR#2.  Running has been pretty solid, swimming has been the most inconsistent.  The good news is all my long days have felt good, so I am confident I'll survive the big day.  Here's my recap of my RR#2 and plan from here.  I'll write up a separate race plan soon.  

Swim: Pool doesn't open til 8am on weekends and I needed an earlier start than that for the RR, so I did the swim Friday night, 25 yd pool.  First 1500 was at a good pace (surprisingly good!) and then a drastic drop off after that.  I think that is just where my swim fitness is right now, and it will be what it is.  I was trying to focus on "finger tips down, climb the ladder" as my catch sometimes/oftentimes doesn't exist.  I think I stuck pretty true to the swim as fast as your form allows mantra, and never felt I got to the point of flailing that I sometimes do.  Around the 2500 yd mark, I started having some pain in my left shoulder.  I hoped it would shake out, but was getting worse and then started having pain in my upper back, probably from compensating.  I chose to pull the plug at 3600 yds.  After slacking on my swimming for far too long, I have tried to do a major swimming increase lately and this was a clear "you've overdone me" feeling.  I knew at that point that I could finish the thing but didn't want to aggravate the shoulder.  In the next two weeks my plan is to swim at least 4x/wk but not into pain.  My swim isn't going to be great no matter what I do, so the worse thing would be to make this little niggle a bigger deal.  

Bike: After a whopping 5.5 hrs of sleep I was up Saturday morning to get the RR done.  Temps were starting in the upper 50s, with a chance or rain.  It was cooler out but felt good.  I had 3 bottles of Perform to start, then switching to gatorade.  Gatorade was the devil to me for a while, but I've worked to get use to it for the ease of on course nutrition.  I cannot run while drinking the stuff, but seem to be ok now with it on the bike.  Nutrition plan is 1.25 bottles gatorade/perform per hour + 1/4 bar every half hour for 320 calories an hour.  This has been tested with long rides and successfully running off the bike. 

My goal is to keep the watts around 120.  I honestly don't have a good solid FTP number to work off of.  My last test is 170, but I have consistently been able to do long rides and run off of a target of 120 (.70) which is a bit high for my target time.  In RR#1 I watched my average power (121) but not my NP, and ended up with an IF of .82.  The fact that I survived this, was able to run off the bike, ride long the next day, and then run a half marathon makes me think my FTP is higher than I'm testing.  I'm pretty confident with the 120 target, but open to opinions from folks.  

I biked right from home, which takes about 20 minutes to get through city stuff, so that was a good cue to just ride easy to start.  My legs felt tired and I started with a bad attitude.  I think lack of good sleep is a major issue here.  Probably was negative nancy until the 1 hr mark.  It was also colder so I really had to MAKE myself drink, vs my last long ride where it seemed super easy to drink that much.  Other difference was my last 5 hr ride I peed 1x (and REALLY) had to go when I got back home), whereas on RR2 I was peeing HOURLY, so I was clearly not sweating out a lot.  I'm guessing CDA is going to be on the hot side, so drinking should be easy without just peeing it all back out.  

After feeling more in the groove for about an hour, at hour 2ish my power meter started giving me way whacky readings.  Like 300+.  Girl can dream, but hell no.  I stopped, recalibrated, but still the same.  I look and it is also showing that I am going 30 mph.  So something very wrong there.  Ok, just focus on HR.  I was keeping it between 133-141, which was where I want it.  Unfortunately there are some periods of stop and go due to lights/traffic, etc, so that did make riding steady tough.  A better course would've been ideal for a RR, but I didn't have the extra admin time (or a car) to drive out somewhere.  After about an hour of crazy powermeter business, it stopped giving readings all together.  Battery issue?  Haven't checked yet, pretty new battery, but that would be the easiest solution.  

Nutrition wise, I was getting more like 1 bottle in an hour instead of 1.25, but supplemented a couple times with a gu for more calories.  My energy felt pretty constant.  My neck/upper back started to get real sore at hour 4, which just comes from a lack of positional fitness.  I expect I might feel a bit uncomfortable race day, but I also will have a few more position changes in the hills than in the flats of Chicagoland.  Other big complaint was my tri shorts.  They put a seam where?? Somehow I haven't had issues with these in the past, but definitely need to get new ones ASAP.  Ouch. Not enough chamois cream in the world to make that feel better.  Honestly, the last two hours were just kinda boredom.  I just wanted to be done.  My head just wasn't in it all day, but I knew I could get through.  

I don't know exact mileage, thanks to the technological issues, but thinking 107ish (flat) miles.  I thought I might have overbiked it a bit without the power meter based on how my legs felt when I finished.  As I quickly got ready to run and downed a gu, I saw that my road ID was ridiculously tight around my wrist.  Holy swelling Batman!  It was just my right wrist and hand, the same side as I wear my Mio link quite tightly on my wrist, so I think I might have had some swelling as the day got warmer and then it was too tight?  Since it was just one side I don't feel like it was a big electrolyte issue, but correct me if I'm wrong.  I decided to go without the HR as I wanted to keep all my limbs attached.  Then I was off running.  That disconnect between RPE and pace is SO true.  I felt like my legs were going as slow as they could and I was doing 8:30 miles.  Whoa nelly!  I really tried to slow it down, but couldn't consistently get slower than 9:15 when I should be doing 10:07 for the first 6 miles.  Going to really need to reign this in.  The whole run felt solid, felt no need to walk and felt like I could keep going.  That's what I want right?  And then, just like that, Ironman training was done.  

Thanks to anyone who read this novel.  Here are my thoughts going forward:

1) Swimming - get in the frequency, avoid pain.  I had no chance of becoming a significnatly better swimmer in these next two weeks, so the priority is to get to the race healthy. 

2) Bike- I now know that I can ride without technology, but I hope to have it working.  Nutrition seems pretty dialed in.  I will do some yoga and mobility work to maybe help position feel comfy, but the discomfort really isn't too bad.  Bike ships out on Wednesday so next weekend's 2.5 hr ride will be on the road bike.  I need to focus on the fact that I have had good long rides, not on all the training that didn't happen, can't change that now! 

3) Run- my run is in a good place, feel stronger about it than I did for IMWI in 2013.  I need to really really work on holding back those first 6 miles, even when I feel good.  I know better!  Would've been nice to have HR data to see what that was.  

4) SLEEP!  I think a lot of my negativity that I had on the bike was just fatigue from life.  5-6 hrs of sleep has become my norm lately and that is no bueno!  7-8 hrs from here on out!  I am also getting to the race on Wednesday, so that means I'll have several days away from my real life to rest as well.  The good thing is that I have now done both my RRs on bad sleep, so that takes care of any anxiety I might have when I toss and turn the night before the race freaking out about a lack of sleep.  

Sorry for the marathon post. Good to get it all out.  Please share any thoughts!