T42 - Nuking The Village - Bike/Run Brick

Gainesville

This is an expression I learned from the guy who taught me how to blog, a fellow named Matt in New York who wrote a blog called the IJC. I won't talk about him here, but the term refers to a night when you go out drinking, and start doing shots and chugging beers like a moron to the point that you are either incoherent and passed out by midnight, or you power through the entire night being "that guy," who requires extensive babysitting. Either way, you went too hard, too early, and now at the end you're a total fucking mess. I didn't go out drinking, but today's workout, I nuked my village. Think I just got a little too excited and forgot I had a brick.

Bike - 1 Hour

2 Lipodrene (down to my last pill, that refill better fucking get here soon!)
I took yesterday off as my knee seems to have decided it wants to start acting up again (no idea why)and thought it better to switch the rest day that was supposed to be today to Monday, then do last Sunday's workout today and skip the Tuesday workout altogether. You lost yet? Basically I am skipping the first workout of this recovery week and doing the last one from the last week of Base 1 instead, since they are almost identical. ANYWAY.....

I had to wait until 4:15 to start the bike, and as I was getting my water bottles ready, Trevor looked up from his iPhone and asked how long I was going. Having just gotten his Super Cervelo fixed, he wanted to come along. Usually long rides with Trevor consist of me keeping up with him for about 10 minutes, wasting my legs, and dropping back for the other 2 hours and 50 minutes. But today was an hour, so I figured why not push it a little. See how long I could keep up. This is a guy who averaged over 20 for the entire Ironman, so it's a good lead to follow.

He managed to lose me at the first stoplight (I hit the red) but did wait at the trailhead. I kept up with him at a solid 22-24 clip until we got to some hills, where he kept that clip and pulled ahead. Well, lasted about 14 minutes this time, I thought. Still, an improvement. But once the hills flattened out he has slowed down and looked over at me when I caught him and said "I was just seeing if I could drop you. I can't keep that pace, shit. I thought I'd lose you a while ago." With that I shot up the first big hill in the hammock at over 20, maintaining that almost to the top. Trevor pulled back out in front for much of the rest of the ride, but I hung with him at 22-24, taking the lead a few times to give him a break from pulling. Although I made a point to avoid drafting as much as I could since that wouldn't really be keeping his pace as much as using his bike to make me go faster. But at the end of the ride, I'd more or less hung with him the whole time. Took a gel at 45.

When we got back to the light at Main, he was like "You're a real strong rider. The only way I'm dropping you is tactical shit like knowing when to push it going around curves and up hills, and timing light and accelerations. That's advances shit you can work on and get a good 20 seconds on people every time." He also advised me to start practicing using my small ring. Since I don't feel like a pussy now for using it, I feel like this should be to my advantage. But on flat ground, I can keep up with this guy. And that's a major stride from where I'd been previously. So that felt good. I ended up averaging 19.4 for the ride, and when I got back I had some serious adrenaline going. So I took the iPOd, feeling a good run coming on as well.

Run - 60 Minutes. At least, that was the plan.

Soooo, yeah. Learned a few things today. Good as my legs felt on that ride (they never burned for more than a few seconds, even going up hills) at minute 22 of run they went out. Now, granted, I was running up and down the hills on the backside of the campus loop at a much faster pace than usual because I was so pumped from the ride, and I had the iPod on. And though I've decided I was overusing that Silversun Pickups CD on so many levels, I think I can still use it for workouts. And it worked here. But as soon as "Panic Switch" ended, my legs did too. Like the just went "Hey, fuck you pal. These quads have been working harder than ever the past hour and a half, and you can just hold the fuck on while we take a little breather." So I took me second gel a little early and let them relax as I stopped and did some stretching.

Well, all that adrenaline must have made me forget about my knee, because as soon as I started up again, it was like someone had re-ripped my meniscus. Also, probably becasue I was tired I was plodding more than usual and putting more stress on my knees, but after another half mile or so, my knee was done. My legs felt better, but the knee was just not feeling this run. So, for only the second time ever, I adopted my "quitters punishment" policy and forced myself to walk the rest of the course home, even though turning around would have been a lot shorted. You're gonna be miserable either way, I figure, and the only way to be miserable for less time is to start running again. But every time I tried, my knee was once again telling me to go fuck myself. And I wasn't going to push it as I'd rather puss out on a run during a recovery week than do damage that may hinder longer runs down the road.

So a few things. First, on bricks, don't go balls to the wall on the bike. This was not a max effort today, but it was a hard effort, and having a 6.8 mile run after that I probably should have laid back a little. Also, on long runs after long bikes (or at least fast bikes) I'm going to stick to a flat course to preserve my quads. I don't feel bad about this given that the Ironman course is, in fact, completely flat. I may jsut do a series of stadium-and-backs so that if my knee gives out, I don't have to walk 4.5 miles home. On a bad knee.

I'm not sure why my fucking knee has decided to be a bitch again, but whatever. Short of surgery I can't really control that. But this is my last run of recovery week (in keeping with the recovering theme) unless I feel 100% on Sunday, which is a scheduled 90-minute run. The week after that is swim-intensive, so this should be just the break it needs before getting a real test in 2 weeks.