T94 - Saddle Sores Gettin Serious - Run, Bike

Gainesville

I took Saturday off. I figured I rated a day off after a 112-mile bike ride. That and it was actually a scheduled day off as I began my last recovery week. As I've started to do for RWs, I opted to do a mechanical workout today, 45 minutes on the treadmill and an hour and 15 on the bike trainer.

Run - 45 minutes (treadmill)

2 Lipodrene
My legs felt surprisingly good after the rigorous ride on Friday, so I set the treadmilll to 6.8, which is about an 8:40 pace. Faster than I'm sure I'll do in the race, but good to get my legs used to running. The treadmills at Jefferson are loose, so for someone my size running at a decent clip, the belts tend to stick a lot when I step down on them. There is not only one treadmill I can use there.

As it was, I ran well through it, feeling a little bit labored but keeping the pace well. I started to fade a little towards the end, but I chalk this up more to that mental feeling of being near the end than anything else. I did use the iPod here, as again, its a treadmill run.

Bike - 75 Minutes, Trainer

2 Lipodrene
I took a nice long break between workouts, maybe 3 hours or so. I set up the trainer around 7, and it was already dark outside. And it is starting to cool off a little (for Florida anyway, Probably only 80 when I started)so it was not the perpetual sweatbox that it can be.

What it was was extremely painful. Those long rides leave you with some hemorrhoids or saddle sores or something nasty on your perineum, that just sends waves of soreness up your groin every time you drop into aero. I was able to keep aero for about the first 15 minutes, but had to sit up periodically after that. I didn't really look much at the speed, as Trevor told me that's a pretty useless statistic. But I felt like I pedaled pretty strong, and even closed my eyes and just went for some extender periods.

Let me tell you, biking on the trainer in aero with your eyes closed is intense. It's like you really feel nothing but you and the bike, and if you have the right kind of music on you get in an almost trance-like state. I was able to do this 3 or 4 times for about 5 minutes each, just pedaling hard the whole time. Sadly, eyes-closed biking on the open road, not a good idea. But that's why sometimes the trainer is fun. Anyway, I almost got in an interval workout this way. The only reason I stopped was because the saddle sores were killing me and when the initial adrenaline rush wore off I could feel them.

So I'm opting to take as much time between bike sessions as possible this week to let this heal up. That pain is not excruciating, but if I can minimize it I will. Your ass gets to a certain level of conditioning, but like everything else once you start doing 100 miles-plus, it's a whole new level of toughness. So I'll use this recovery week for what it was meant for: revcovery.