i can’t believe it. i PR’d my half ironman bike leg… on the actual race course… on a training day… with a warmup and cooldown.
I feel amazing.
ok… no, i don’t feel amazing. i feel tired (more sleepy, less fatigued), which is why i just rewarded myself with a nap… and it was amazing. I always tell myself i’ll nap after a good training sesh but i never actually do. but today, today i napped. i napped on my brand new pottery barn couch… and it was glorious.
With my “A race” still 3 weeks out these last few weekends are crucial to my preparation. i have been working really hard and trying to give it my 100% dedication. i’ve got goals and i want to hit them. Today’s schedule called for a brick: a 3 hour ride followed by an immediate 30 minute run. I decided today would be the perfect opportunity to get to the race site and ride the course. There’s absolutely no excuse for competing in a race less than an hour from home and showing up on raceday to learn the route. So while the typical mid-twenties single gal is out on the town on a friday night, i, myself studied the maps and wrote out my turn-by-turn cue sheet, miles included! yeah. i’m that awesome. it was actually much harder than it sounds. you see, the awesome (ahem.. low budget…) race website was nice enough to provide course maps… unscaleable course maps with very limited information, no directions, and no mile markers. basically they provided a worthless image… so i made my own. i sat down and compared the “map” with a real map and was able to figure out the turns based on the angles and shapes of the roads. yes i’m serious. i then took my route and plugged it in to a mapping software and plotted my points the whole way so i could know approx mileage. the only unknown was when the final turn-around point was. with no hints from the map i realized i was going to have to figure it out on the fly and hope like mad my math skills remain intact after a few hours in the saddle.
I swear, the preparation it takes to get ready for a workout is almost as time consuming as the workout itself. I made myself dinner consisting of 4 oz tilapia filet; large salad of organic greens, cherry tomatoes, and leftover roasted zucchini/squash, and (a lot of) broccoli. I then put together breakfast #1 and breakfast #2, and set the coffee pot to start brewing at 5:40 so I could wake up to the lovely smell of caffeine. I put together my race bag and made sure i had both sets of shoes (running and biking), socks, helmet, necessary nutrition, a change of clothes and put it in my car. the less i have to think about in the morning the better. I broke down my bike and put her in the trunk as well. I laid out my clothes and set my alarm. all in a night’s work.
Fast forward a few hours, my alarm went off. i quickly made my way to the kitchen, put my oats in the microwave, poured myself a cup of coffee, and heated my egg whites. I got dressed and brought my food in the car with me as i drove to my friend, Guy’s house. His adorable goldens (1 doodle and 1 retriever) met me at my car when i pulled up and i wanted nothing more than to play with them all day, but alas, i resisted temptation jumped into his truck and we made our way to the Ferry. Yes, the ferry. how cute is that?
Anyhoo, before I knew it we were pulling up to the park/soon-to-be-turned-transition area. Amelia island is a cutesy seaside, resorty beach town that is overflowing with scenic cuteness. i was super excited that the scenery for my day would be so pleasant :)
After unloading the bikes, securing my water bottles and getting my running gear ready for a speedy transition i was ready to roll. We didn’t drive the course first, so I pretty much just hoped my directions were going to be relatively easy to figure out along the way. About 10 miles in my power meter started giving me trouble again. i believe it went a little something like this:
i’m not going 0 watts.
why is it telling me i am going 0 watts?
no, 20 still isn’t right.
work. please work.
WHY WON’T YOU WORK!?!
seriously, i spent way too much money on this thing for it to be giving me trouble. after coasting down to 0, cranking it up and spiking it and eventually settling into my normal cadence it was still unstable. i just kept confident it would fix itself like it had before. luckily, it did.
I stuck with water until the 45:00 mark at which i had a few sips of sports drink followed by water. Again at 1:00 I had more sports drink followed by water and 2 endurolytes. At 1:10 I started my first interval. Today’s workout was the same as my last few saturdays: 3 hours- 4×20:00 at Tempo Power with 5:00 recoveries. I was having no trouble reaching or maintaining my tempo zone. I actually felt quite comfortable, focused, and strong. I was waiting for the feeling to fade, but i made the entire interval without flaw. Wow. I was feeling good. During my 5:00 recovery I drank some more sports drink, more water, and just spun my legs easy.
Interval #2 went much like interval #1. I was beginning to wonder if maybe the wind was giving me a push b/c my speed seemed higher than usual, but Guy assured me the wind was completely still. Being a very experienced cyclist himself, i don’t argue with what he says… That’s why when it was time to do interval #3 and he said “do this one without looking at your computer. get into your groove and do it by feel”, i listened. It was really hard for me to not look. i had to make the conscious effort to keep my gaze ahead (though, not gonna lie, i snuck a few glances). I was told that while i’m averaging within my zone my power is jumping around too much. It’s near impossible to hold a set number of watts for a duration, that’s why we train within zones wen dealing with power, but apparently I jump around too much. Guy watched my computer for me and called out my #’s when they started to fluctuate. I can’t say enough how much this helped. I was actually starting to feel what 120 felt like compared to 135. cue the lightbulb above my head.
Before I started my last interval Guy told me I was well on my way to hitting my goal time for race day on this ride. I wasn’t sure I believed him, but who am I to question the expert, right? So I used that lil piece of information to motivate me through my last 20:00 block. I FELT GREAT! Feeling this way on the race course is certainly a booster! Once i finished the interval instead of slowing down completely to recovery-speed I decided to stay just under tempo. Guy gave me the minute and mile counts and told me just to try and stay around 18mph and I’d hit 56 miles in 3 hours. I wanted it. I didn’t want to sacrifice my recovery or mess up the intention of this workout, but i wanted it… so i played it smart and rode steadily. “half mile to go”… “quarter mile” … “aaaaaand DONE”.
56 miles
3:00:54
And that, folks, is a new PR.
We still had about a mile left before we hit “transition”, so i dropped my gears and let my legs spin comfortably. I pulled up to the truck, jumped off, grabbed my shoes and my headphones and in less than 30 seconds I was running. The workout at hand was a 30:00 run at z3 HR. Purpose was not to run fast, but to run steady. Still on a high from the bike, I wanted so badly to try and push it, but i restrained. Actually, my steady was nothing short of slow. I don’t think i could have picked up the pace too much if I tried. I just did an out-n-back 15:00 each way and not technically the race course. The course map was just as sketchy as the bike map, and I didn’t feel like trying to crack the code. I just enjoyed the beautiful beach scenery and cottage homes (some nicely kept, and some not so much).
All in all it was quite the day. I was reminded once again how much I love this sport and how much of a high I get when test the limits.. and exceed.
We didn’t waste any time getting back in the car and heading back to jax and I was digging into my protein pancakes before we even left the parking lot :) I also made sure to take my vitamins and glutamine immediately. Once I got back home, after a nice, long shower I shimmied into my compression socks, made and ate lunch (large veggie-ful salad and veggie + hummus + eggwhite on Ezekiel bread sandwich) and curled up on the couch…
