100 Skull Numbing Miles and a Speedy Sunday Run

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Since I was pretty much down for the count all week long with limited workouts, I wasn't entirely confident about my first official century ride of the IM Training season. T3 was riding out to Buda/San Marcos and back. Because I was afraid of getting sick or being completely devoid of energy and stuck 30 miles outside of Austin, I decided to do a different route all together by myself.

100 miles on the 8 Mile South Mopac loop.
With a couple of trips to the car, it was 12 mind-numbing loops for 100 miles on the dot.

I intended this ride to serve a couple of purposes:
1.) Keep me close to my car in case I was too sick to continue
2.) Keep my speed and energy in check. I wanted to average between 16-17 mph and this is a good loop to practice time trialing and consistency.
3.) Ride 100 miles alone for the mental tenacity
4.) Get used to the repetitive nature of loops. IMAZ is a three loop course. I was doing 12.
5.) Ride within myself...talk myself through the lowpoints...focus on nutrition...reserve energy

The ride served those purposes and a much-needed confidence boost as the weeks draw closer and closer. It was a stunningly beautiful day today in Austin with plenty of sunshine and a high near 80. While it was cool in the morning, the clouds burned off and warmed up nicely.
Instead of focusing on the number of loops, I just tried to let my mind turn to mush really. I thought about everything but the number of loops I had to do. Low points were followed by high points, and while there certainly was wind in some points, it was a treat to get the tailwind on the way back.

Total Ride: 100.3 miles
Total Riding Time: 5:46:35
Avg Pace: 17.4 mph
Avg Cadence: 86

If I can do anything like that on race day, I'll be in heaven! Granted this loop is interesting because the wind and the hills get you on the way out, but you're usually blessed with a nice tail wind on the way back making the trip back almost like a recovery. Today was no exception. So, while I wasn't doing the same course my teammates were doing, I was suffering in my own way and, let's face it, 100 miles is 100 miles afterall.

Here is a recap of the laps:
#1 31:38 (from car and first loop)
#2 29:01
#3 28:00
#4 28:20
#5 28:21
#6 31:57 (loop and to and from car)
#7 28:32
#8 28:07
#9 28:04
#10 26:58
#11 27:37
#12 29:55 (last loop and back to car)

Nutrition:
Pre-Ride: Sweet Potato Pancake and 1/2 English Muffin with PBJ
During Course of Ride: 4 scoops of Perpetuum in one bottle, 2 bottles of water (one nuun)
At 50 miles: PBJ Mini-Bagel, 3 clif-blocks
At 70 miles: refueled water bottles with water and Gatorade and continued sipping on Perpetuum.

Felt pretty decent at the end...actually got off my bike and jogged about 10 minutes to see what it felt like to run on 100 miles! (ummm....not so good) :-)

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Had a rare and pleasant run scheduled with my hubby this cool Sunday morning. We're running the ATT Half Marathon together next Sunday so this was his last long run before the race. We ended up running 9 miles on the trail and averaged 8:39 for the entire run. He really pushed me through a lot of it and I know I wouldn't have gone that fast if I was out there by myself. My body is just so damn tired these days that I haven't been really pushing my pace on long runs. It was a great gradual pick up throughout the entire run ending with a brisk 7:50 pace on mile 8. We cooled down for the final mile and threw in a couple of hills in our neighborhood on the way back to the house (much to my chagrin) ;-).

Feeling much better and ready to hit it again this week...