Just going with the flow

Warning: it's a long post because I have a lot of notes that I need to keep track of. :-)

So last week was pretty stellar...I came back from a wedding and something just clicked with swimming:

Tuesday - 1950 yds/55 minutes
Thursday - 2100 yds/55 minutes

I only did one bike ride last week - on Thursday - because of mechanical issues (I had to get a new tire and apparently my chain was stretched which explains a lot - my chain got stuck the week before when I was on the Crit and I fell over not once but twice). While it wasn't much at all, 3 loops at Hains Point, it felt pretty good and I could really feel a difference in my bike! I still need to get the handle bars wrapped again but I'll do that after the long ride this upcoming weekend so she's all shiny and new for Ironman!

Moving on to Saturday's long ride. A lot of this is boring nutrition stuff but I need to document it so I can keep it in mind for race day.

I'd been having stomach issues the entire week and it was hard to eat enough food so I was a little nervous that I didn't get enough calories in on a daily basis to support the approximately 9 hour ride I was going to attempt the next day. I went to bed at 6:00 PM on Friday night. I know it was a little overkill but I needed the sleep so badly so I popped a Unisom and off to bed I went. Got out of bed around 4 AM.

Pre-ride Nutrition: I had an Almond Butter sandwich on the drive there and a bottle of gatorade. Right before I left I had a bowl of cereal. I think the calories were just right. (Probably around 400-500).

First loop. 16 miles (Culpeper Triathlon course). It felt pretty good. I passed a couple people, people passed me. It was just a warm up loop and then towards the end I actually kept up with people I know are faster than me without feeling like I was going too hard. So I was feeling pretty pumped. I didn't think the hills were too bad except that first hill right when we rolled out of the parking lot. It was tough mainly because I wasn't warmed up yet. Took a couple wrong turns but nothing too bad.

Next, the Old Rag/Culpeper ride. Susan G. sent us an elevation chart that looked like this:

73 miles. 6370 feet of climbing.

I basically said 'shit' and cried myself to sleep. Jk. :-) I was excited for the challenge.








Madison elevation chart.

Total climbing: I can't seem to find it anywhere....but I know it's less than Culpeper.

The Culpeper ride was....exhausting, hard, but I did it. Now I'm not gonna lie, some tears came out at one point (Mile 74ish of the entire day) and I thought I wouldn't make it. Ed had just passed me so I got him to come back and he talked me out of quitting by pouring ice water on me and giving me coke and chocolate.

I finished. That's what I was happy about. That even with thoughts of quitting, I pushed through with Jodie and we came in together.

Then we went out and did another 10 miles. :-) For me, that was a total of 101 miles. The longest ride I've ever done.

Nutrition: Almond Butter & Jelly (changing this to PB & J) every 15 minutes every other hour; shot blocks on the even hours; gatorade throughout; Cheetos at rest stops; and coke for the final 2 hours. I tried pretzels but they just taste gross to me while riding.

Things I need to put into my special needs bag:

Coke, Cheetos, Chocolate (mmm Snickers bars!), extra PB&J

Today I'm going to order the PowerBar perform and see how that works out for me because it'll be on the course. This will really save me from having to mix my own gatorade.

Next up. 120 miles on Sunday. Keep your fingers crossed for me! :-)

Rohini