Sunday Sunday, what a fun day this was I must say......Man was it tough, you talk about taking everything out of me just to finish the day knowing that this was the PEAK of my training and now I get to taper. So, let me tell you how it went...
Today started out with a 2-mile swim event in Reston, VA. This was a well organized event and I hope to do this next year. Our wave started at 9am which was nice because I got to sleep in a little bit but the downside to it was we were going to start our 20 mile run in the heat. My plan for the event was to swim the 1st mile in Zone 2 and then the 2nd mile in Zone 3. There were several waves that were separated by 30 seconds and it turns out I was in the last wave. I must have put a ridiculously slow estimated finish time to end up in the back. So when I started, I was actually the last person to start, which turned out to be a good thing. As I got into my groove, I started passing a lot of people. It felt great to be doing the passing for once as opposed to being on the bike when the world passes me. It was awesome. The first lap was a nice, steady zone 2, my sighting was good and I seem to keep a straight line, well straighter then usual. I completed the first mile in 31:08.
The second mile I continued to stay in Zone 2 and still feeling pretty good, I picked it up to Zone 3 the remaining 1/2 mile to go and finished the second mile at 30:16. In total, I came in 12 out of 19 in my age group and 93 out of 198 overall.
After the race, I stuffed myself with about 12 Oreo cookies, drank some Gatorade and headed over to the run start which was about 2 miles down the road. I spent about an hour between the swim finish and the start of the run.
A group of us started the run around 11ish and it was hot. The sun was out, it was humid and it had to be close to 90 if not already 90 degrees. I started the run going very slow and was only averaging around 11 minute miles. I was being way conservative because I knew it was going to be brutal. I had a hat on and sunglasses which seemed to help when the sun was out. I seem to run without stopping till about mile 7 where I began to practice my run/walk technique. It was just too damn hot to keep running without intermittent walk breaks so i would run a mile, then walk for about a minute, run to the next mile marker, walk, etc.... I carried this on and at mile 11, I was back at my car and refueled. I threw a bag of ice over my neck just to try and cool off, took another electrolyte, refilled my water bottles and off I went for the remaining 9 miles. Again, it was the same run/walk technique except when I got to about 4.5 miles to go, I was taking walk breaks every 1/2 mile. I actually ran out of fluid around mile 17 and bummed water off this guy who was nice of enough to share. That was all I needed to get back home except for the quick water stop at mile 19. From mile 19 through 20, it was all mental to push myself to finish, thinking how long I have trained and that my EPIC weekend was about to come to an end. I could not believe I did it. When I finished I had the
biggest smile on my face being so happy that I pushed myself to go 140+ miles in two days, by far the hardest workouts I have ever done in my life. Now I need to do that in one day in about 4 weeks!!
biggest smile on my face being so happy that I pushed myself to go 140+ miles in two days, by far the hardest workouts I have ever done in my life. Now I need to do that in one day in about 4 weeks!! The one remarkable thing about this run is that during the entire run, in the blazing heat, my legs did not cramp up! This is an amazing break through because always in extreme heat, the legs would cramp up. Just remember that I took an electrolyte before the run and at Mile 10 and I also poured Endurance Liquid in my Gatorade as well. I'm not quite sure if this helped, but I know I will be using it again in a few weeks!
After the run, Coach Ed had the Team Z tent and bbg grill set up and I stuffed my face with two cheeseburgers and two hot dogs. I just ate and sat in the same spot for about an hour, numb to what I accomplished.
By the way, the 20 mile run took me 3:50 minutes! That is the longest 20 miles has ever taken me to complete, but given the fact that I just came off of a 3 week build cycle, biked 118 miles yesterday, swam 2 miles this morning and it was 90+ degrees w/humidity....I'll take it!
I have PEAKED now it is time to TAPER!
Unbelievable totals for the week:
Swim: 5.7M
Bike: 134M
Run: 33.4M
Total: 18:45 hours, 171 miles!
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