T35 - Uphill, Both Ways - Bike/Run Brick

Gainesville

I made the mistake of not eating much more than a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a bagel with peanut butter last night after the long swim. I've realized that when I know I have a long workout like this one the next day, I really need to make a point of eating something substantial. Even if I'm too lazy to cook, go get some pasta or a pizza or something. Taking in 1000 calories after a 3000 meter swim and before a 50 mile bike isn't gonna cut it.

Bike: 3 Hours

2 Lipodrene
This was my longest bike since the awful, awful Orlando half, and only my 4th ride this long of 2009. This is more indicative of how bad that last training cycle was than anything else, but the point is that this was my longest ride of the Ironman Training Program to date. I took along 2 gels and a Cliff bar, and was militant with myself about taking them all at 45 minute intervals. I did that one nicely.

What I did not do nicely is ride fast. Like I hit Hawthorne and couldn't really get up much past 19. I thought I'd just use this as a ride to get used to being out on the road for long periods of time, and thought I'd just cruise and get used to it. but 19 became 18 became 17, and a lot of times I found myself biking like I was on an incline when the terrain looked pretty flat. Like I'd be rolling along at 18 or 19, then all of a sudden I couldn't go past 15. Putting forth the same effort, but just couldn't go any faster. It literally felt like I was constantly going uphill. I'm starting to think maybe the trail has some optical illusions like that, where there's a grade but it looks flat. What else explains it?

It was hot, so I think that was part of why my legs weren't as powerful as they sometimes are. I also was, as I said before, not going on a ton of food. The ride just went slow today, and I'm not sure why. I stopped at about the 1:50 mark for a couple of minutes just to get my motivation back, and the 3 advil I took at the 1 hour mark kept the back pain at bay from about 1:30 to 2:40. So that's going to be a key ingredient on a lot of future long bikes. And there are a lot in the future.

The only bright spot here is that this ride reminded me of a lot of shorter rides I'd has last cycle. Like no power, hard to get going fast, and lost motivation. The difference here is that this was a long, long ride and it was hot out. then it was temperate and the rides were short. I credit a clearer mind this time around, I really do, and it only goes to underscore my points about minimizing life distractions when you're training for an event like this.

Run: 30 Minutes

The Lipodrene had more or less worn off, but I saw no point in taking another one when I'd be done as soon as it kicked in. I had one more gel and had a nice shuffle down to the stadium and back. All I could think was "Fuck. I gotta do this like 8 more times after a bike ride that's twice as long? Good thing I have 14 more weeks." The run actually wasn't too painful and I could definitely have gone longer. But looking at a 90 minute swim tomorrow, I saw no need for that.