Finish Line 70.3

Finish Line 70.3
Finish Line 70.3

70.3 Finisher!

70.3 Finisher!
70.3 Finisher

Monday, February 21, 2011

Time of My Life: Seven weeks 'til race day!

Although I am of the firm belief that, with a few exceptions, all good music happened sometime before 1980 (before, for example, "Disco Duck" and "I Don't Bump No More Big Fat Woman," both of which were I believe highlights of the 80's music genre), I have to admit that a few of the modern tunes manage to make their way onto my playlists and into my jogging songs. Although I am one of the few Americans that has never, ever managed to watch a single episode of "American Idol," that doesn't mean I don't know some of the songs from it, or from the singers who are plucked from obscurity into singerdom. I happen to like the song "Time of My Life" by Adam...oh, you know his last name. Second place to the other Adam who won, who has tattooed eyeliner and painted fingernails. For simple working out lyrics, nothing beats "I'm out on the edge of forever ready to run...." Well, of course I am. Right now, I have to be.

I had a long weekend of long workouts and there was a brutal, nasty, howling SW wind all weekend with gusts up to 35 mph. Well, okay, the 70.3 I'm entering has brutal, nasty, howling winds (you know it's gonna be bad when the race's own website describes the bike course as "flat but windy."), so this was simply practice for the real thing. Right. I came away from the weekend with most of my skin sandblasted off me, and two extra pounds packed on me (I'm swearing it could not possibly have been the dessert I ordered while eating out Friday night).

Saturday was a 3 hour bike. I did this in my 'hood, as Coach Claire, playing Cruella De Ville :-), suggested I do some hills, along with 3 hours of riding into the wind. So I did. About 12 of them, all but 2 into the wind (or it seemed that way) and 9 miles long. Actually, only about 3 of them ate my lunch enough to make me shift into the smaller chain and keep searching for a lower gear that woefully just wasn't there (that is always such a fun feeling, clicking the gear shifter and having the bike say, nope, this is all you got, so learn to live with it). But riding on the flats headed due south into that hurricane was pretty tough--sometimes I was lucky to average 11 mph during those segments, and I was really hunkered low over the aerobars, trying to make myself into Frodo size. I kept thinking I would make up for that when I turned downwind, and I did make up some of it, but not as much as I would have liked.

I tried some different nutrition on the bike for fun; I made some biscuits with raspberry jam and put them in small baggies in the bento box. Although they were very tasty and fairly easy to eat (in small bites) they didn't seem to fill the hunger hole in my gut like the old hard boiled egg does, so I'm afraid they aren't going to make the final cut (so far, the final cut is a hard boiled egg, several gels, gummy bears, and two small peanut butter sandwich cutouts made with a round cookie cutter--and go easy on the PB as it can cause you to choke if you swallow too much of it).

The annoying thing about riding the 'hood is how many stoplights I have to stop it, and it messes up my bike time. I know I will go faster on the average when I don't have as many stops and starts. Still, it gives me a chance to rest my weary rear off the saddle. Right now, the plan for the 70.3 is to ride straight through to 28 mile (halfway) and then get off for two minutes and stretch and use the portapot (hoping there is one at the turnaround point for us old ladies), and then back on for the second 28 miles. I don't need to get off at all if I don't want to, but if I'm on target for my time, IMO it's a good idea for me to get the blood flowing to all the nether regions again at halfway. I've got a long run coming up after the bike is done!

Sunday was a 2 hour brick, an hour ride followed by an hour run, and the winds were even stronger on Sunday and it was also getting rather warmish (again: told myself good practice). The bike was slow, rode with Patient Spouse on his new carbon rig's maiden voyage (and he needs to have the chain adjusted), just cruised a bit and then did a couple of major hills before cruising home, hopped off and did a 2.5 minute transition (majority of time was spent yanking off the long sleeve bike overjersey as the day had heated up considerably), and off for the run into the wind. I planned to go slow if need be, but I felt pretty good and did my run 8 minutes/walk 2minutes the entire time and ended with an 11:23 mile average and plenty of gas. I hydrated well both during the bike and the run, and took in a gel about halfway through the just over 5 mile run. Patient Spouse had bought me a gel squeeze bottle which I found I loved, other than finding room where to stash it. I put it in my jersey back pocket, but it was big enough to want to try to fall out and also to get in the way of me twisting around my fuel belt to get to my sports drink (no room for both it and my drink bottle in the fuel belt). I think I will try to use it. It's soooo much more convenient than having to open gel packs and squirting yourself in the face with them, and then ending up with sticky hands plus an empty gel pack that you have to carry or stash until the next trash bin. You can fit up to 7 gels into the bottle which should be all I need for the race (if I'm lucky), along with my egg and my PB cookie sandwiches and my sports drink.

I felt strong after the brick but I gotta admit that Sunday night I hit the wall around 9:15 p.m. and was happy to see my bed soon after that.

I'm happy with my progress so far. Yes, I believe I can fly (maybe not fast, but hey, who watches birds with a stopwatch anyway).

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