It Won't Be Easy

This past weekend featured my first round of IM specific intro sessions and served as a nice wake up call to the reality of what prepping for this distance will entail. In a nutshell... being "70.3 fit" doesn't mean a thing when you're prepping for a 9 hour race and I am NOT (currently) in shape to successfully pull off the Ironman finish I'm hoping to on 9/13! That's okay, still plenty of time until race day, but there is work to be done.

I spent Saturday out on the open roads chalking up nearly 3 hours of IM pace work in the midst of a 4 hour ride. I wasn't feeling so hot towards the end of the session and can't say that I enjoyed my short "T" run post ride either! Lessons learned: I need to be dilligent with my asthma medication during the summer months, especially when it's humid and air quality is poor. Wheezing on the bike and struggling through T runs isn't my idea of fun. Other lessons learned: There's a big difference between simply riding your bike for hours on end, which I have no problem doing, and pinning your watts up around 260+ for 5 hours. I'll be emphasizing the later with my training.

Sunday was a much better day. The rain and cooler temps left me feeling nice and relaxed while out on the bike. I spent a little over 2 hours spinning out @ 230+ watts (nice and easy), practiced the art of "peeing" while in the saddle (hey, why the hell not? I was already soaked anyway. And... if the goal of this training is to emulate the stress/realities I'm facing on race day, I've got to accept the fact that pissing while on the bike is going to be something I have to learn how to do because there's no way in hell I'm giving up 2+ min. to pull over to the side of the road during the race) got off, consumed 1 pria bar, took a couple of puffs off the inhaler and was on my way around the cape. I was surprised how easy a hilly 17.1 mile run felt after riding, but was especially surprised by how good I felt after Saturday's session. I think that my inhaler made a big difference though as I could barely breath towards the end of Saturday's ride.

Anyway... good sign that I could ride for over 2 hours and then run for nearly another 2 on nothing more than 100 calories and 1 bottle of water (a stupid move on my part to go without adequate liquid, but given the rain and cooler temps I was able to get away with it this weekend).

I used my new training toy, the Garmin 305, for my run yesterday and uploaded the session to the Garmin site. Pretty cool training tool, I must say. Here's the session if you'd like to check it out.

Well, I get to enjoy a well deserved active recovery day today (swim only) but it's back to the grindstone tomorrow: Heavy dose of FT work on the bike and run fronts. I hope the rain will end. It's been raining here for nearly 2 weeks now.