Week 15 wrap up

I haven't posted in about two weeks. I just completely forgot. Been a crazy couple of weeks since the half IM. I've put it some massive bike rides and runs. The swimming has been going well, and did my longest open water swim I've ever done.

So this past week I did about 16 hours and 175 total miles. I did my longest bike ride and run this week to the tune of a 100 miler yesterday and a 15 mile run on thursday. I did my longest open water swim on friday which was about 2.2 to 2.5 miles. It was pretty hard to judge how far I went, but I swam for 75 minutes. During my Half IM, which was a 1.2 mile swim, it took me 38 minutes. I did twice that time and I felt that I was faster on friday, so thats my best guess. I'm feeling surprisingly good today, despite the 100 mile ride yesterday. I thought I was well prepared but of course, I got out there and I was missing gloves. The temperature at the time I started was 38 degrees and the sun had not yet risen. I can confidently tell you that it takes about 5 minutes for your hands to start screaming in pain from cold and about 15-20 more minutes for that pain to turn to numbness, at least the pain went away. I was plenty warm otherwise, but the temp rose about 25 degrees while I was out there so I had to shed a few layers along the way.
Anyway, I'm still having a hard time determining how fast I might be on race day. I think the cold weather jacks my heart rate up just like the hot weather does. It takes me a pretty long time to settle in and warm up on the bike, because my HR shot up to 160 in the first 20 minutes until it finally settled in around 140-145 for the most part. Still I feel thats a little high considering the speed I've been riding. I am expecting to be slightly faster on race day with warmer temps and less changing gradient. Despite the relative flatness of where I've been riding, there are still some stretches that have some gradient for a long period of time. I am averaging just a tad under 18 mph once I get myself settled in. It's been interesting, my first lap has been far slower than the rest of them lately. I guess it just takes some time to warm up. Fortunately on race day, I'l be plenty warmed up for the bike after 80 minutes of swimming.
So I finished the 100 miler in about 5 hours 40 minutes. I was only supposed to ride for 5:30, but had gotten to 97 miles, and just couldn't finish short by 3 measly miles. Let me tell you though...those 3 are some seriously tough miles! I went through 6 GU's, 3 bottles of sport drink(2 perpetuem, 1 HEED) and 2 bottles of water. On race day I need to take in one more and still have to figure out my strategy to have plenty out there. I only have one special needs area that I can have more of my sport drink available. I experience a few random aches and pains in my knees and hips, but they all went away as soon as they came up. I had a short 20 minute run after that was a bit tougher than the others have been. It was hotter, I was more worn down, and there were a couple steep hills to go up. Very short, but very steep. On race day I will probably run out of the TA, however, I think I will probably walk for a good while till my HR comes down to a reasonable level, 140 or so. I am still feeling very confident about race day.

So I had two runs in the past two weeks that were very long. One went great, the other went horribly. The run two weeks ago was a 2.5 hour run, with the middle two hours being a tempo run. This run also came just 5 days after the Half Ironman. I don't think I was completely recovered yet from that race. Right off the bat my HR was pretty high, up to the 140's within the first minute. Not a good sign. So by the time I got to 15 minutes I was already in the 150's as I had to start the tempo pace, not a good sign. So I took off, at first averaging under 10 min/mile. That didn't last long. Over the two hours I slowed down pretty quickly and wore down badly by the end. By the end I was "running" around a 14 min/mile pace and had an HR in the 180's. Even during my walk breaks it didn't drop at all. I was light headed and could barely hold my body up. I felt extremely dehydrated and improperly fueled. I hadn't eaten nearly enough carbs and wasn't drinking enough water that week. I think I could've handled that run much better had I been properly prepared. Despite it being a tempo run(fast pace), it turned out to be one of my slowest, if not the slowest, run I've had this season. I averaged over a 12.5 min/mile pace over the course of the whole thing. Despite how badly it went, those are the workouts that really give you confidence because I still finished. Despite how awful I felt, and wanted to quit, I refused to, and still finished, while at the same time, learning a valuable lesson.
Contrast that to the long run this past week. Fortunately, I learned from the mistakes of the week before and drank tons of water and ate a ton of carbs. I went into thursdays run feeling very good, but still nervous after the previous weeks fiasco. Plus it was the longest run of the season. This run went precisely as I had hoped. I maintained a good pace(11:37 min/mile) while walking for a minute every five minutes, so my running pace was under 11. My HR averaged only 141 and maxed at 174. I'm not sure when I hit that max cause I don't remember every feeling that I was breathing hard. I went through a GU every 30 minutes and 5 small bottles of HEED every ten minutes. That breakdown seemed to work, but I still wasn't beaten up from a long ride before hand. I will probably need to take in extra nutrition on race day, plus electolytes. Chicken broth has been highly recommended to have at the special needs station so I will heed that advice.
Lastly, my big swim. There wasn't much to say cause it went so well. I went to lake james and found a large cove and just swam back and forth till I made the time. The water was in the low 70's, cold, but not nearly as cold as arizona will be. But I warmed up fairly quickly and eventually didn't notice it. I hope that happens on race day. I felt really good in the swim, never pushed real hard, and was able to maintain bilateral breathing the whole time. There was some chop as there was some heavy winds but nothing too bad. I'm hoping that with all the swimmers a current may develop and make the swim faster. But who knows. It'll definitely be a tough swim with 2500 of us starting at the same time. I'm very confident in the swim at this point and all I want to do is get out of the water still feeling good and relaxed. I finished this swim with an HR of around 120, so that was very encouraging.

So all in all I had a very good two weeks. Swimming is as expected, solid. My cycling is still slow, but I'm able to ride super long distances and I'm feeling comfortable with it. No serious issues, and my legs are proving to still work after such a massive ride. And my runs are feeling easy and comfortable. Race day can't get here soon enough!