I had almost forgotten what it looked like, but I woke up to sunshine this morning! Great weather for an 80 mile ride and a run. Phillip Rowan met me on the road and we set out to circumnavigate Greenville. We were sweaty pigs from the get-go with this humidity we have down here and I was second-guessing my decision to skip out on salt tablets.
When I get into my Ironman training, I prefer to skip the weekend group grides and go solo. I always have some sort of agenda on my ride, and it doesn't work well with a group. But Phillip is a good guy to do these sessions with. I love his company, and he understands I may have a set routine I want to do perhaps with some intervals or something. He never lets his ego get in the way with mine and lets me do my intervals without sticking his wheel halfway in front of mine.
That said, when I announced I was ready for a set of 15 minute intervals, I took off as if something impressive was about to happen. We were in a headwind, it was hot as hell, and it hurt the moment I accelerated. Phillip was right behind me so after a few minutes of suffering I hollered back, "Does this feel like we're doing anything to you?" "Oh yeah, why do you think I'm tucked in behind ya?" But it was sucking my battery life down something fierce and when the interval was over, I told Phillip I couldn't do anymore of those today. I guess after 6 months of no rides longer than 60 miles, then a 3 week hiatus from riding, attempting to jump to 80 miles with a series of tough intervals was maybe just a little bit ambitious. I opted to live to fight another day and reset the goal of just getting the mileage in.
Which I did, but I was pedaling squares the last 10 miles. I have lots of work to do, but all's well.....patience, Richter Kid. Patience.
It was high noon. I changed to my running costume, grabbed a frozen Fuel Belt bottle from the freezer (it cools me down when I hold it in my palm) and took off for a 3 mile run. Hot. Sweaty. I couldn't wait for the bottle to melt just a tad so I could take a sip of ice cold water and pour it on my head. Just under an 8 minute pace. At the 1.5 mile turnaround I touched a branch of the mimosa tree (that makes it official - my personal timing mat!), checked the clock, poured water on my head and picked up the pace. I always have to negative split the run......
Tough day at the office. Nothing epic yet, but a good, hard effort. The kind that reminds me that if you look at the end goal (of completing an Ironman) then you can get discouraged, but if you break it into smaller goals and believe that you can achieve them in steps all of this suddenly becomes attainable. You just have to trust in the steps that take you there. This workout will eventually evolve into 130 mile rides with very long, hard interval efforts or all-out time trials with 6-8 mile runs afterwards. I know I can't do that now, but there are steps along the way that will get me there.
I had a great afternoon nap and then Frank was up for a swim in the evening so I met him for a quick 2000 yards at the Rec Center. Great way to end the day!
Total training hours today: 5.32
For dinner, we tried a vegan chili recipe out from ultra-marathoner Scott Jurek's book. It was awesome! I may not roll vegan, but I do tonight!
So, that's how my week's worth of workouts is setup. It's gonna be a long journey. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be hard. But it's gonna be worth it. Thanks for following. I'll post here from time to time to let you know how it's going as the rest of my journey to Kona progresses!
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