Thank goodness I made it out of that alive!!!
On Saturday, several of us rode the Pineywoods Purgatory ride in Lufkin. Wow. That was 101 miles of straight hills. I'm not sure I ever need to go back to Lufkin again. Around mile 75 or so I texted Jon to say I was alive and where I was. He wrote back and said he was sleeping in the back of the car, with no energy to talk, because "that was a tough ace ride." He did the 70 mile route...so I felt a bit better about how awful I felt at that point! After approximately 6.5 hours of riding, I made it back to the car. We were at McDonald's in no time and I was hungry less than an hour after scarfing down a quarter pounder meal. Hmmm.....
I will say that the ride was pretty and well organized, but he road surface was awful from about mile 10-55, and that just takes a lot out of you. There were 1-2 twenty plus mile sections that were almost all up and no down. By the time we finally go to go down, the headwind was blowing right in our face. I had to pedal down hill to keep going...NOT fun. The riders spread out very early on and I was by myself for a majority of the ride - not my favorite way to do things, but definitely a good deposit in the training bank. That was my 6th time in 7 months to ride 100 miles or more...and the slowest by far. Oh well. I'm looking forward to not having to ride 100+ miles for a long long time.
Sunday I had an 18 mile run scheduled. About halfway through the bike on Saturday I was wondering how in the world I was going to run even half that far. Once the ride was over, I told myself to suck it up because in 5 weeks I will get a whopping 3 minute break and will have to run 26.2 miles...this weekend I had a 15-16 hour break and only had to run 18. Deal with it.
I was very apprehensive heading to the park Sunday morning and had low expectations because the person I planned to run most of the way with bailed and I knew 2 others were meeting to run, but I figured there was no way I could keep up with either and that I'd be alone most of the run. I do NOT run well by myself for anything more than ~5 miles. I just don't like it. Thankfully though, someone was looking out for me, and I ended up having about as perfect as an 18 mile run as I could have had. Sure, it rained the whole time and my muscles started screaming from Saturday's ride just a few miles in, but I had good company the whole way and had one of the fastest long runs I have had all year. Greyhound ran with us for a good part of the way and Raymund became my new best friend running the entire way with me. IMFL will be his first ironman, so it was fun to be able to talk ironman for 3+ hours.
On Saturday, several of us rode the Pineywoods Purgatory ride in Lufkin. Wow. That was 101 miles of straight hills. I'm not sure I ever need to go back to Lufkin again. Around mile 75 or so I texted Jon to say I was alive and where I was. He wrote back and said he was sleeping in the back of the car, with no energy to talk, because "that was a tough ace ride." He did the 70 mile route...so I felt a bit better about how awful I felt at that point! After approximately 6.5 hours of riding, I made it back to the car. We were at McDonald's in no time and I was hungry less than an hour after scarfing down a quarter pounder meal. Hmmm.....
I will say that the ride was pretty and well organized, but he road surface was awful from about mile 10-55, and that just takes a lot out of you. There were 1-2 twenty plus mile sections that were almost all up and no down. By the time we finally go to go down, the headwind was blowing right in our face. I had to pedal down hill to keep going...NOT fun. The riders spread out very early on and I was by myself for a majority of the ride - not my favorite way to do things, but definitely a good deposit in the training bank. That was my 6th time in 7 months to ride 100 miles or more...and the slowest by far. Oh well. I'm looking forward to not having to ride 100+ miles for a long long time.
Sunday I had an 18 mile run scheduled. About halfway through the bike on Saturday I was wondering how in the world I was going to run even half that far. Once the ride was over, I told myself to suck it up because in 5 weeks I will get a whopping 3 minute break and will have to run 26.2 miles...this weekend I had a 15-16 hour break and only had to run 18. Deal with it.
I was very apprehensive heading to the park Sunday morning and had low expectations because the person I planned to run most of the way with bailed and I knew 2 others were meeting to run, but I figured there was no way I could keep up with either and that I'd be alone most of the run. I do NOT run well by myself for anything more than ~5 miles. I just don't like it. Thankfully though, someone was looking out for me, and I ended up having about as perfect as an 18 mile run as I could have had. Sure, it rained the whole time and my muscles started screaming from Saturday's ride just a few miles in, but I had good company the whole way and had one of the fastest long runs I have had all year. Greyhound ran with us for a good part of the way and Raymund became my new best friend running the entire way with me. IMFL will be his first ironman, so it was fun to be able to talk ironman for 3+ hours.
I was supposed to swim Sunday afternoon, but the weather had other plans. Odd that running in the rain sounds appealing at this point, but swimming does not.
Next weekend will be more run-focused, with my longest training run scheduled for Saturday. Sunday will be a shorter recovery ride - music to my ears! The next weekend will be another 100+ mile ride, but it will be FLAT, and I will have already started my run taper, so I will probably only have to run 16 or so miles. Whohoo!!
Now I just need the weather and work to cooperate to get in these last 2 important weeks of training. Our biggest deadline of the year at work conveniently falls at the end of next week...so biggest weeks of training have also been biggest weeks of work...yuck.
Comments
you are headed for another great Ironman!! wish I could be there, I have a ton of friends going. I'll tell them to cheer for you.