Yesterday and today held key workouts for my confidence leading up to HyVee and Lifetime. I've always known that I'd be able to finish both races, but was still hesitant about really surviving the race and hitting my vague time goal of 4 hours. Until yesterday I was only confident about my ability to survive running 6 miles a distance, until recently, I've never ran. But now I'm beginning to feel much better about the other two legs.
Yesterday I hit the trails for a two hour ride, my longest ride to date. However my bike computer decided it was going to take a vacation so I rode sans technology... just like the 'old' days. I used my stopwatch to time the ride and rode on trails that I had previously ridden so I'd know the mileage. I ended up doing 30 miles in under 2 hours, which was decent for me (I'll work on speed later this season... survival is number one priority right now). It was awesome weather, cool but sunny so I got to work on my awesome tan lines of bike shorts and a jersey tank top.
The down/up side of training in Cedar Falls is that it is almost always windy... these are decently strong winds that make you work. Half of my ride was with the wind while the other half was against it, which meant my overall speed dropped. On the up side, training in wind gives me a constant resistance if there is a course with no wind, I'll be stronger (it worked for the Pigman, I'm banking on it working in Des Moines).
Today I felt like hitting the pool, so to chlorine land I went. I was going to squeeze out a reverse pyramid of 500 swim, 400 pull, 300 swim, 200 kick, 100 swim. But, then I started swimming and thought I'd just keep swimming and before I knew it, I cranked out 1200 straight yards!! This is the longest I've every swam in a row. I've got no problem swimming long sets when I'm using a pull buoy but when I'm just swimming, I start sinking around 450. But today I just kept going and I felt great! not to mention I was pleased with the 21:00 minutes it took me to swim it!
This was a major break through for me because I'm hesitant about my ability to swim the olympic distance without a wetsuit if it necessary. With my AquaTux I know I'd have no problem, but if they weren't legal, I was gonna be in big trouble. But not anymore!! Although 1200 does not equal 1700, I figured the adrenaline will carry me the rest of the way on race day.
Also today, I FINALLY got my car back! For the last 3 weeks, my better half and I have been without 4 wheels. While it's not that bad for me, B-Rit works in a neighboring city, that is beyond biking distance, so it's been harder on her. So hopefully after spending 2 grand on my new car, things will be working smoothly for a LOOONG time! Now I get to start bike rack shopping!!
To celebrate finally having a good day, I made a chocolate cake complete with chocolate sprinkle frosting! Doesn't it look good?? It's not from scratch... I'm a poor college student!!
The plan for tomorrow is to either a) go for a 5 mile run in the AM and a easy bike ride in the PM or b) do a good solid brick with a decent ride and at least a 3 mile run. (I'm writing this now so I have to follow through!)
I'll let you know how it went!
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