Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Weekend Wrap Up

I'm going to start with last Wednesday. I swapped it for Thursday and made it a rest day due to scheduling conflicts (husband outta town, work, pick up kids, hair appointment). Thursday I ran 6 miles at lunch, but totally missed my 4000yd swim due to more scheduling conflicts. So that night, the boys and I spent the night with my parents, and I was able to get up and out at 5:30 a.m. Friday morning for a 4500yd swim and then a 100 mile bike. The swim went great. The bike was interesting.

Here's the bike story:

I loaded up 2 24oz bottles of Gatorade Endurance and 1 bottle of water, 6 fig newtons, and two packs of Cliff Shot Blocks. I took off from my house and road down Fredonia Rd., over to Maple Springs, and then through Pocahontas and Jacksboro to reach McMinnville. I had not ridden this route on my bike before, but it was beautiful and I loved it. Nice smooth road, no dogs, courteous motorists. It also allowed me to arrive at my mother's & father's in-law house to fill up two of my empty bottles. I felt great at that point, just short of 2 hours, and I was averaging around 18.3 mph. I took Hwy 55 back towards Manchester, but then took a left on Ramsey Rd, which eventually led me over to Rock Rd., and then to Hillsboro-Viola Rd. This also was a great route. So my nutrition plan was to eat 2 fig newtons and drink 1 bottle of Gatorade per hour. According to my calculations that would get me around 240 calories/hour. This worked fine, for the first couple of hours. I refilled my bottles with water at my mother-in-law's, and supplemented Cliff Shot Blocks for the calories I would be missing in Gatorade. This worked for about another hour, and then I got hungry. I found out that there is a difference in setting for a 100 mile bike ride with a pre-ride breakfast in my tummy, and in swimming 2.5 miles, eating a fig newton, and then taking off for a 100 mile ride. I needed more solid food, but felt too squeamish to eat any at this point. I could tell that I was starting to fade as I approached Hillsboro, around mile 65, and I was out of fluids. So I stopped at the store and bought a bottle of Gatorade and a bottle of water, and for a little while, I felt refreshed. From there, took the AEDC access road out to the recreation center at the Air Force Base, circled around UTSI Rd, and then headed back for the final 20 mile stretch. I tried to eat Cliff Shot Blocks, but they just didn't go down easily like they did for the Half Iron, or for 60 and 70 mile rides. I kept my composure, though, and kept pedaling strong until I got back into town, with about 7 miles to go. At that point, I was really weak and sick to my stomach, and I just wanted to get home. I got back to my house at 99 miles, and I almost turned in, but at the last second I decided it wasn't worth it. I rode another half mile and back to get 100 miles in 5hrs 33 min. That is an 18mph average, but the bad part is that until mile 92, I was averaging 18.3. The last 8 miles I was barely moving, even though I was doing all that I could do. It was the classic "out of fuel" type of feeling. Or bonk, I guess I should say. So...I finished the ride and learned some good lessons. I also realized that there are a few things that it's time for me to purchase and quit just talking about purchasing them.

They are:

CarboPro - I need more calories for long rides than I'm getting in the Gatorade Endurance. Momo advised me of this a while back, and I probably should have taken her advice instead of finding out for myself.
Gel pads for my aerobars - those little cheap pads that came on my Profile carbon aerobars are a joke. I need some better padding there.
Aerobottle - mine fell apart at the Gulf Coast Half Iron. It's time to replace it.
Decent Flat Pack - I'm having a tough time finding a flat pack that will work with my aqua rack on the back of my bike. The one I have is just jerry-rigged between the seat and the rack, and it protrudes way out to the left. That sets off the internal lost-aerodynamics alarm in me, and has to be fixed.

...and...I need to actually use my sunscreen instead of just carrying it around. 5.5 hrs with my back to the sun = sunburn, regardless of how easily I tan.

So, a few lessons learned, and another 100 miler down. Which leads to the 18 mile run I had set for Saturday morning. This 18 mile run, combined with the 100 mile ride of the day before, knocked me out of doing the local Star Triathlon that I won last year. But congrats to Michele who took the 1st place honors this year, and kept the crown in Manchester! Congrats to all my other peeps, too, who represented Manchester well at this event - Tim (1st AG), Eric (3rd AG), Amy (1st AG), Will (1st AG-on a MTB Bike of all things!), Justin (4th AG), and Tony (4th AG)!

I set out for my 18 miler at 5:30 a.m. My legs felt a little bit dead at first, but came around after a few miles. I really didn't push the pace in this run. I loaded up my iPod and listened to some TacBoy and Bigun podcasts - old and new - and then switched over to some tunes when I got too tired to be laughing at TacBoy and Bigun and my incredibly, over-the-edge, backwoods, southern accent while trying to decipher "tri-terms" from Tac-n-Bigun. Good grief, I need to go spend a few weeks in California or New York or something. I didn't realize it was that bad. Anyways, I ran the 18 miles in 2:55 with my fuel belt, which ran out after 16 miles. I had to swing by Old Stone Fort and grab a drink from the water fountain, and that gave me enough to get me home. I showered quickly and Bo and I drove up to watch the end of the triathlon and congratulated all our friends.

We camped out for the rest of the weekend, and I ate too much, laid around too much, and it enjoyed it all way too much. Back to the grind today...

Totals for week-
Swim: 8300yds
Bike: 126 miles
Run: 29.5 miles

One more hard week to go, and then I get a recovery week!

5 comments:

Wes said...

Yea, I've been told to drink one bottle of sports drink AND a bottle of water per hour. Yikes! Not sure if I can handle that. I've been eating fig newtons (love them), peanut butter crackers, PB & J sandwiches, and gels on the bike. That part seems to be going fine, except the crackers can be a bit hard to get down.

I've heard good things about the Carbo Pro and Infinit, and I might try some of that too here shortly.

Great training this weekend :-)

TJ said...

Huge week. Good to learn those nutrition lessons now.

Anonymous said...

Great lessons learned. Keep working hard this week! Your recovery week is almost here.

triguyjt said...

awesome training this past weekend.....wow......

To celebrate your training, I'm making a cake out of fig newtons...

;)

Tracy said...

OMG you're a machine. Big deposits in the bank. Hang in there, it'll let up soon!

Btw, if you can find those little pretzel bites with peanut butter inside, kind of like Combos but not, though those will do in a pinch, they are AWESOME.