I intentionally did my workouts early on both Saturday and Sunday in order to beat the heat as much as possible. Saturday wake-up call was 5:15 and after some food, stretching and preparing my bike set up, I was out the door at 6am for an easy 20 minute run. Colleen joined during this run which is always nice especially in a longer (4+ hour) day of endurance work. Immediately after the warm-up run, I jumped on the bike and headed out for a 61 mile adventure through some very hilly terrain. This particular route had 2,700 feet of vertical climb over the 61 miles. To provide a perspective, the Ironman course has 2,900 vertical feet of climb over 112 miles. So I was basically packaging the same amount of hills as Ironman into a shorter (61 mile) ride. Pretty brutal, but IMO necessary in order to prepare for Ironman. As a side note, next week’s Horribly Hilly Hundred bike race has close to 4000 feet of climb over 63 miles (ouch).
Saturday’s ride went pretty well, but it definitely had some bumps and bruises. Around 50 I started experiencing some stomach issues and had a hard time with my nutrition. Basically the thought of a gel or my liquid nutrition made me nauseous. Even water didn’t seem real appealing. The wind, although not terrible, was 15 mph out of the West, so that also made this ride tougher. Throw in the heat, the hills, the nutrition issues and the wind and things got pretty tough at the end for me.
Although I successfully made it through the bike, I still had to finish the workout with another 20 minute run. By this time, it was downright HOT with full sun and not much shade on my running route. I knew this tiny, little run would be VERY hard on me. And guess what? It was. Running 20 minutes is nothing to me, but after a pre-bike run and a bike through tough conditions, this was very difficult. I struggled to finish, my stomach did not feel well and I was extremely drained. Ironically my HR on the run was much lower than I would have guessed which is the one good sign out of this workout.
Getting through Saturday was tough, but I also knew I had a decent run to do on Sunday. Once again, I was out early (6:30 am) to beat the heat in order to run 1 hour and 35 minutes. I intentionally ran this slower than usual and took my hydration with me in the form of my water bottle belt. The good news is that this run went much better than Saturday’s workout. Although the temp was hot, I did much better managing the heat by taking it “easy” in the conditions.
That wraps up week #7 of training. One more “build” week coming up and then another recovery or “easier” week.
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