"The Push"...week #3

The final week of "The Push" is over...now I have a rest week. There are six weeks left before Ironman Arizona...and now I can see the "light at the end of the tunnel".

After this rest week there are two "IM Hard" weeks that have similar workouts as I've been doing, but with higher intensity. My longest ride is coming up, and it consists of 7 hours with some race pace efforts...then a 6-7 mile run after. That's going to make a long day. The next day I'll do 2:00-2:15 run. After this week my long ride and run start to become shorter, but introduce more intensity (eg: 4.5-5 hour rides above race pace).

Saturday
I didn't feel real "spunky" today...legs were sore, and just didn't have it. Anyhow, I met up with Greg, Danny, Dave and one of his friends to do the long ride. I've been babying my right knee, and have had some trouble with my left Achilles and ITB...so I was wondering how it would feel after today. We rode South and hit all the big towns...Switzerland, Orangedale, Mill Creek, Hastings, Molasses Junction, Elwood, Picolata, Bass Haven, Palmo, and Florence. Through the wind swept potato fields, past the convenience store in the middle of nowhere that has batting cages (yes, batting cages), along beautiful sections of the St. Johns river...and then battled some good winds on the way back. I finished the day with a little over 106 miles, and then did an easy 30 minute T-run to nurse the sore knee.

Sunday
Today was my longest run of the training schedule...20 miles, and I wanted to do it in around 2:40 (8:00/mile). Nice and easy, and keep my heart rate low. I ran at the Baldwin Rails to Trails in the afternoon. So I wanted to fully test the stuff I was going to use in the Ironman, so I used the tri shorts, tri singlet, hat, shoes, socks, sunglasses, gels, and hydration/fuel belt I planned on using in the race...needless to say, I was tri-geeked out! This also gave me the opportunity to find out where my clothing selection would chafe me, so that I could try and fix those hot spots before/during the race.

I ran the first 10 miles mostly off the asphalt and on the dirt beside the trail, some of which is used for horses. Spots of it were hard packed, some was pretty sandy, other places were mushy, and some had big patches of horse dung...I tried to avoid those. I went 5 miles out, turned around and went back to the beginning to meet Double (Danny Domingo) to do the last 10 miles with me. The majority of my running, probably 99%, is alone...so running with someone really made the last 10 miles go by rather quickly. Danny kept me motivated and I ended up under 2:40 for the run...but, also with some blisters on my feet from running off road. My running shoes have elastic laces to put them on and off quickly, so they don't hold as tightly as regular laces...this made my foot move around in the shoe and gave me some blisters...and pretty dirty feet from all the sand getting in my shoes!

Sween