Yesterday marked the longest training day to date...8 hours and 45 minutes. I got on my bike at 8am and started what would turn out to be the best training day ever! The weather could not have been better--crisp in the morning and warming to about 84 degrees in the afternoon. No wind until after noon meant that I would be looking at my fastest ride to date--14.3 mph! I covered 102.5 miles in seven hours of actual riding time, battled some pretty strong winds, a couple of decent hills and sat through 40 minutes of traffic lights! All in all, a pretty damn good day! If I could've changed anything it would've been my nutrition. When I started my run I felt nauseous and starving all at the same time. This is a phenomenon that can only be experienced whilst doing something like this, I think! Typically, what I consume during my bike rides consists of liquid nutrition and Shot Blocks (kind of like a Jell-O shot sans the alcohol). For all other rides, this nutrition plan has worked great, but not yesterday! The five mile run that followed the bike ride was slow and painful, which was super disappointing after such an awesome ride. On a positive note, it brings to light the need for me to change my nutrition plan for the race, which I will be trying out next week. The result of yesterday's workout was, quite simply, exhaustion. I was in bed by 8:45 and asleep (I think) by 8:47!
Waking up this morning and knowing that I had a two hour run almost made the nausea from yesterday come screaming back! So instead, Tracy and I decided to go out for breakfast and run after we ate--can you say, "mistake?" I had some oatmeal, one egg and half of a pancake. All of which, sat in my gut like a golf ball for the first 40 minutes of the run. And this was not a run that I wanted to start in the first place. As a matter of fact, I started the run and turned around after the first few minutes and came back home. After deciding that I was being a wimp, I walked back out the door. One thing that I have discovered during the past 20 weeks of training (wow, 20 weeks!) is that the longer I go, the better I seem to feel. This is what I kept repeating to myself for the entire run. I ran a little slower than I would've liked, but considering the way I was feeling, I'm okay with it!
This coming week is the LAST hard week of training! After this we start our two week taper and then...it's Race Day! We received our bib numbers this past week, and I was hoping for a seven. The only thing I know about numerology is that I'm a seven, and it appears in many aspects of my life--my birth date, my address, etc. My bib # is 781...7 + 8 + 1 = 16. 1 + 6 = 7.
It's gonna be a great race!
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