T41 - Bran+Coffee+2 Cliff Bars+3 Gels=A Real Fun Afternoon - Bike/Run Brick

Gainesville

I seriously thought about taking today off. Week 14 has no rest days, and I had a rough night, and I thought, yeah, today might be nice to not do anything. But it's funny, I looked at the day and realized I had absolutely nothing else to do all day. And I wasn't hungover, nor was I sore, tired or anything else that would give me even a pussy excuse for taking the day off. So why the fuck not? 3 hour bike, no big deal. Had myself some coffee and raisin bran, had a Cliff bar an hour later, and hit the road.

B: 3 hours long bike. If your breakfast routine last week worked, repeat it
again here, if not, experiment with something new.

2 Lipodrene
I'm starting to think I can tell if a bike ride is going to be good or bad in the first five minutes. Literally, if I'm able to coast down the first hill past 101 at over 20, the ride will be good. If I'm struggling to get to 19, then it's gonna suck. Flew down it at 22 today, and I knew it was gonna be a real good ride. Though it took me the usual 8 minutes to hit the Hawthorne trail head, I got to nigbridge in just over 27, and kept pushing all the way through those areas that I'm now convinced are inclines I just never noticed. Actually made it to the end of Hawthorne in 59:10, which is a record for a solo ride for me. I took 3 Advil down there and refilled my bottles.

What was awesome was that I actually went FASTER the way back up the trail, as my average speed went from 18.4 to 18.7 by the time I got back up to Waldo. I had had another gel and a Cliff bar at this point, and turned it around again. I was maintaining speeds over 20 on most of the flat straightaways, which is my goal for most rides at this point. At some point it'll have to be to maintain that though the whole ride, but baby steps, ya know? This is the kind of long ride I needed to have. The Advil kept the low back pain at bay, and it was 2:41 before I really had to stand up in the saddle to relive the pressure on my back. Like I was able to maintain those speeds up until the 2:41 mark, where I definitely started to slow. I had a second gel at 2:15, along with another Lipodrene. Remind me never to by the orange flavor Gu again. It was disgusting.

All in all, this was definitely 180 degrees from my last long ride on Monday. I ended up averaging 18.5, which, again, for me is pretty good for a ride this long. I'm getting to a point that I know how far I can push my body and still make it through the workout well, and I really feel more in tune with that aspect of myself than I ever have. Like I wake up and say, "Ok, body. Here's what we're doing today, and here's how I want you to do it." And I know what to expect from it, and it rarely disappoints. Really, it's pretty cool. I was very happy with today's ride, and hope it sets a base for how the rest of training is going to go.

Run: 30 minutes

I got home and had a 3rd gel (this officially made this a $5.50 workout) and Trevor asked me if I was about to run. I told him I was and he decided to come along, even with my advising him I had just biked 55 miles and probably would be taking it easy. But I thought I would try and keep pace for a little while as a sort of challenge. After all, it was only a 30 minute run, I could hack that.

Usually, when I do long runs with Trevor I can keep up for maybe a mile before I have to fall back. Today, I made it about 50 feet. Literally, I don't even know that we'd reached the corner of 2nd and 6th before he pulled ahead. But I wasn't too concerned. It was overcast and I kept my stride the whole time. I felt surprisingly good having just biked as far as I had, and I definitely could have run a lot more if need be. Again, I was very happy with how the run went, as well as the entire workout.

I included that little bit about a breakfast routine in there for a couple of reasons. The first being that I find it amusing that Scott Herrick thinks everyone does these workouts first thing in the "morning," having only eaten one meal. I'm rarely if ever on the bike before 2 p.m. Also, that raisin bran and coffee combined with 2 Cliff Bars and 3 gels? Yeah, guy. Not the best thing for your digestive system, especially when washed down with the farm runoff that the City of Gainesville likes to call tap water. I was not feeling so hot even after my muscle milk shake, and El Gran Combinacion at Las Margaritas pretty much finished off my insides for the night. Not sure how to avoid this gastric distress in the future, but man, that did not feel good. I may have to forgo the bran flakes and coffee next time I have a long workout. Bagels do just fine.