Too Big To Fail

I’ve been trying to simplify my bike commute lately.  I’m no longer riding with my heart rate monitor and bike computer on my way to and from work, so I’m no longer getting times for those rides.  It seems like I’ve been doing that commute in a pretty consistent 18 minutes anyway, and at about five miles each way it’s such a short distance I hardly consider it training.

Still, I have been riding my bike in to work every day since I got a new rear wheel for my commuter bike.  It’s held up very well so far and I’m sure it’ll give me a lot fewer problems than the wheel it replaced.  (It was bent badly once, so it never stayed true, and it finally broke a spoke the week before last, prompting its replacement.)

Last Saturday I was scheduled for a run, but looked at the calendar and realized I was only about four weeks away from my first event. I decided it was about time to try doing all my distances back to back.  My lovely wife drove me and my bike over to the YMCA.  I set out a makeshift transition area in a locker, and went to the pool.  Due to an unfortunately timed water aerobics class I had to do my laps in the over-chlorinated kiddie pool, but I just ran through the shower quickly before changing into shoes for the ride.

I dropped my bag off in my car, and rode my 10.5 mile route, ending back at my house.  I then ran a 2.5 mile run around my neighborhood to finish up.

The biggest problem I had was with temperature.  The Y doesn’t open until 8:00 on Saturdays, and I didn’t get in the pool until almost exactly 8:30.  By the time I was running, the sun had been out a while and it was very hot.  I ran very sluggishly, but I did run the whole distance, even if it wasn’t much faster than I could have walked it.

Times:

• Swim - 400m - 10:59
• T1 - 6:54 - (That’s with a fast shower)
• Bike - 10.6 miles - 41:00
• T2 - 5:00 - Estimated
• Run - 2.5 miles - 34:25
• Total Time:  1:38:18

Those times certainly aren’t competitive, and I would have been last place in my age group at the event I volunteered for earlier this month.  However, I would not have been last place overall, and I think my time will be significantly better when it is three weeks later in the year and an hour and a half earlier in the morning.

I don’t think I’ll try a dry run again for two weeks because my wife is out of town this weekend.  My next attempt in a few weeks will be my last before the race on 10/18.  Realizing I have just over a month until the International distance event on 11/8, I’m starting to push the distance on my runs.

I ran 3.2 miles this morning in about 46 minutes (with five minute warm-up/cool-down walks included).  I’ll push it to 4 on Thursday.

Rough week.  Lots of days off, didn’t ride in to work two days this week.  I got my runs in, but only swam once.

So I decided to ride fifty miles today.  I’m thinking about doing this Miami to Key West ride in January.  That ride is done as a 100 mile ride on day 1, then a 60 mile ride to Key West. That’s not what I’m training for just yet, but I wanted to get an idea of how the new bike works on a longer ride.

When you’re doing a there and back ride, you really have to commit to your distance when you still have a lot of riding left to do.  I was feeling pretty good, if a bit tired, when I turned around in Palm Beach at around mile 26.  My biggest problem then turned out to be water.  The northernmost ten or so miles of this ride are in Palm Beach, and there are nothing but private residences and therefore nowhere to fill up a water bottle.  That was really getting to be a problem at around mile 35, but I found a park, bought a Gatorade and a had some gulps from a drinking fountain.  That went pretty quick, though, and I didn’t see another good place to refill until I was about five miles from home.

I’m definitely going to have to put a second cage on the new bike so I can carry two water bottles.  Other than that, it was a good ride.  I’m certainly sore now, but I feel like I caught up on my exercise for the week.  If I’m really feeling it later, I might go for a swim.

I’m pretty far away from riding 100 miles in one sitting, though.