Well today didn't quite go as planned I wanted to do a 180km ride at race pace as a final tune up before Ironman. It didn't quite happen. This week I've taken three days off (unheard of for me) the amount of work and travelling I've been doing hasn't afforded me the time to train. Monday I was in Paddle Prairie (7hrs driving), Tuesday in Peace River (2hrs driving), Wednesday in High Level (2 and 1/2hrs driving), and Thursday back home to Grande Prairie (4hrs driving). That's a lot of time on the road but that seems to be the way of life around here. I'm getting more used to it but it still eats into my free time when I usually do my training.
Although I'm feeling a little nervous about my prep, I've done what I need to do to be successful in Louisville. I've put in a lot of hard training not only this summer but throughout the winter and spring as well. Friday I woke up early and went for a 3km swim in my new blue seventy swimskin, it felt great and I was really motivated by watching the fantastic Olympic swimming. Those men and women are so fast it's hard to imagine moving through the water like that. I did my best to try to imitate Michael Phelps but didn't come close to any of his times, not a surprise.
Friday afternoon I wanted to do a tempo run and I managed to get in a 59 minute 15km but it hurt like hell and my heart rate averaged about 160bpm. The heat was really taking it's toll on me, but I was doing my best to try and keep going. I'm going to have to get used to this as soon as possible, the average temperature in Louisville this time of year is between 26 and 33 degrees.
Today my legs were feeling the effort of yesterday's run and I knew in the first hour that I wasn't going to be able to do a six hour ride today. I told myself not to worry about it and I'm not going to gain some incredible strength I never had before, all the hard work has been done already. So I completed a 92km loop in 2:37 and went for a short 5km T-run in 20:37. I'm okay with the shorter workout today. Amber and I did some neglected yard work and went for a nice lunch, some of the things we're usually too tired to do after a long training day.
One thing I've noticed with my running in the heat, I'm really going to have to slow my pace down. I'm used to running about 15kms/hr, I can do that in the hot weather but it takes a severe toll on my body and there is no way I could sustain that for a marathon. I'm going to race smart and slow it down for the first half of the run and if I have anything left for the last half I'll let it go.
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Hi Darin - thought I would drop a note post Louisville. I was the guy from Seattle that has been reading your blog for last ten months in prep for IML. Got to say it was strange to run into you and Amber given the thousand plus number of people in the room that night. As mentioned, I had been following only two blogs in my prep for Louisville - yours and a guy from here in Seattle that had been training for IM Couer d'Alene. Found them to be good reads.
Sounds like your race was much like mine, but faster. I had visions of sub 11 and ended up at more than 12 1/2. My swim which felt good in the water was off my 1:15 target. Course I could not see my watch two feet in front of me. The bike which I wanted a 5:45 ended up almost 20 minutes more. Found it impossible to get in groove and really just found myself trying to conserve energy for run. The run was basically a death march. Cramped up badly as soon as I got off the bike in both quad's and hamstrings and ended up power walking almost a full marathon. The run is normally my stronger of the three sports and while I new it would be difficult, could never have predicted what happened. Most of have tried 100 times to kick run into gear and got nothing but continued cramping. In all honesty, aside from cramping my body was really not that tired at end of race since the run turned into more of a stroll.
It is just impossible to train/prepare for the oppressive heat and humidity that is Louisville when you live in Seattle, but finishing the race was my primary goal so I have to be happy with that.
Best of luck in future endeavours. Kevin
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