Well, if you read this blog to check on my workout progress, then this is your lucky day. Last weekend I polished off the end of a bike-centric week with a 4 and a half hour ride last Saturday. Let's start there, shall we.
Saturday
I packed up the bike with all the nutrition I could, including 50 ounces of Perpetuem, 24 ounces of water, PowerBar Gels, Shot Bloks and Endurolytes.
The wind was blowing at a steady 20 miles per hour from the South, so the plan was to head South first and then turn to go with the wind as long as possible before heading home.
I made my way through New Hope, Minnetonka and Eden Prairie before ending up in Chaska, home of my next race: the River City Days Triathlon. On a side note, if you've never done a tri before and want to get your feet wet, this is a great race to start with. It's small, well organized, and has a 1-mile-long downhill run to the finish. That'll boost anybody's ego.
Anyway, I was already out of water and had the salt munchies, so I stopped at the local Walgreens to snarf down some Pringles and pick up some H2O. Then, I headed out West towards Waconia. My legs were doing fine, but temps were over 90 (dang hot by Minnesota standards) so I knew that endurance may be a factor.
After Waconia, I headed North towards Minnetrista. At this point, I was FINALLY going with the wind. My average speed jumped from 18-19mph up to 22-23. Yee-Haw! Unfortunately, I was having such a good time enjoying the tailwind that I made my biggest mistake of the ride - I didn't stop in Minnetrista to grab more fuel and water.
By the time I reached Independence I was out of Perpetuem and water, my legs felt heavy and my back was sore. I was hurting. Big time. I hit up a Holiday station near Maple Plain for 2 more liters of water and some fruit, but the damage had already been done.
I decided to cut about 10 mile off of my route and just limp home the quickest way possible. I finally reached the homestead after 4:25 on the bike and 74 miles behind me. Unfortunately, that gave me an average speed of just 16.7mph.
At that point, I was so overheated, the only thing that felt good was lying nude, spread-eagle under the ceiling fan in the bedroom. Not a pretty picture.
I think that when I do long rides in the future, I'll load up the car with copious amounts of fuel and fluid and drive out to a loop. That should help prevent me from running out of gas and turning a training ride into an Epic Fail.
Sunday
Sunday was a recovery day. I did a quick 19 mile ride - two loops around Medicine lake and then back home again. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. Then, The Wife and I did a short jog around the neighborhood. She started getting overheated, and I was still reeling from Saturday's suffer-fest, so we cut the run short and headed home to veg out.
Monday
Monday was all about my dad's birthday. You can read all about our shenanigans here. I did manage to squeeze in a quick 30-minute run before all the birthday-fun. No muss, no fuss.
Tuesday
Since this is a run-centric week, Tuesday as my first chance to really pound the pavement. The good news, no, the GREAT news, is that my Superfeet seem to be working. I've felt little to no pain in my left foot for over a week. HOORAY!
The run workout started with a 10-minute warm up and then proceeded into 6 repeats. The idea was to go hard for 7 minutes, then easy for 3 minutes, and repeat 5 more times before a 10-minute cooldown. This was a rough workout. It wasn't the longest of the year, not by a long shot. However, I don't remember working so HARD during a run workout. My heart rate was maxing out just shy of 180bpm. During repeat #3 I had to fight off a strong urge to start walking
It was strange that repeats 4-6 actually felt easier. Okay, maybe EASIER isn't the right word. They were still hard, darn hard. I just think that my mind finally convinced my body to stop complaining and get to work. All in all it was a satisfying day.
Wednesday
I got a change of pace Wednesday with a swim workout followed by a bike. The pool workout was 2 1500-yard repeats. My pace for the first repeat was a respectable 1:34/100y. I must have slacked off a bit for the 2nd repeat because I slowed down to 1:38/100y. Hmmmm. I'd better keep an eye on that.
Then, as usual, Wednesday was a group ride with the Twin Cities Spoke, leaving out of Wooddale Church. The turnout was smaller than usual - it had been raining earlier in the afternoon - but we made the most of it with a 31-mile at 18mph through what turned out to be a beautiful evening.
Thursday
Today, I did another pool workout. This one was more about speed. I did a warmup and then settled into descending repeats starting at 300y. In other words, I swam 300 yards, then 275, 250, 225, 200, 175, 150, 125, 100, 75, 50 and 25. The hardest part was just keeping track of which repeat I was on and how many laps I had to do.
The plan also called for a run today, but life appears to have gotten in the way. Our lawn has grown so gnarly in the last couple of weeks that I had to make an attempt to mow, or I'd have to apply for a White Trash Membership Card. That sucked up the rest of my daylight, so I'll have to postpone today's run for the weekend. Meh. Next week is a rest week and includes two off days, so I guess that a hard weekend won't kill me.
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