Week Twenty-Eight

This week's purpose was to recover from our Wildflower race weekend. I definitely rested a bit more than I usually might have during a recovery week. For my mid-week workouts, I rode with my friend Sara for about an hour on Tuesday and went to an informal track workout on Wednesday with some TNT alumni.

This weekend went right to the "big stuff" again. I ran 16 miles on Saturday morning. It was my goal to average 11 minute miles. I started the morning off really tired and sore and it took me a while to warm up. It was a great treat to see lots of TNT buddies of mine here and there. I decided to mimic the IMF course by doing repeats along the water, on West Cliff Drive. I imagined that every time I got back to the beginning, I got another "bracelet" (like you get at IMF). I sipped water often, used perpetuem for my calories, and used enduralytes for my electrolyte replacement. By about mile 12, my IT bands were really getting tight, and I stopped to stretch often. During the last 4 miles, I got my second wind and was really making great time. Just in the last mile or so, I came across a mob of teenagers walking towards me wearing Santa Cruz Aids Walk shirts. Now, I am clearly a big a fan as anyone of exercising for a cause. But, these guys were just plain rude. They were totally unaware of anyone else on the road, and were walking in one direction in a huge mob. I was stuck on the inside of the crowd, near the railing. There were too many people to be able to cross over, so I had nowhere to go, going opposite the flow, and just bumping and plowing through. (I even saw a couple of girls with the Aids shirts sneak off down another street with a big bottle of vodka in their hands. It just wasn't a TNT kind of endurance-fundraising group.) It was so frustrating to be fighting the crowds, and it definitely wasn't a fun way to end! But, I did manage to finish my 16 miles right around the 3 hour mark, though, which put me at an 11 minute mile average, and that made me happy!

On Sunday, the plan was to ride 80 miles. Coach Mike has been talking about me needing to mix up my rides a bit so that I don't develop just the muscle memory of the slow uphill kind of cadence. So, for this 80, I decided to just ride up Highway 1, to try to keep up a higher cadence. It was a predictable ride. Headwinds out, and tailwinds back. I "ran into" my friend Jill who was also out for an 80 miler that day, but lost her and her friends when my sponge popped out of my aero bottle and I had to go back to get it. Overall, the ride felt really good.

THIS WEEK'S SUMMARY:
Monday: rest
Tuesday: bike 60 minutes
Wednesday: informal track, run 2.5 miles?
Thursday and Friday: I really can't remember. I'm updating this a week later, and I just can't recall. Did I rest?
Saturday: run 16 miles
Sunday: bike 80 miles