Random Training
(or lack thereof)
Up and Down the Eastern Seaboard
(ie, Northern NJ and Massachusetts, I'm not really sure what a seaboard is)
(or lack thereof)
Up and Down the Eastern Seaboard
(ie, Northern NJ and Massachusetts, I'm not really sure what a seaboard is)
circa September 2010
Between T-Man and the second race in this two race tale, I was supposed to rest for a week and then transition directly into marathon training. When I threw in a come back race I didn't really deviate from that plan.
Thus in the one month between the race in which I almost quit triathlon, and my comeback race I rode my bike 4 times (one of those times was the hybrid bike at the beach and two of those times were "easy spins" on the gym bike).
So that is one bike ride on a road bike between races. And that ride?
Well, I had planned to travel to the race site early one Saturday with a random girl I met on the internet (sort of - the triathlon club message board) and pre-ride the course. We planned and discussed all week and then the Friday before the Saturday ride I left work with a fever.
A smart person would have bailed. Note: I never claimed to be smart.
I took advil, napped, took more advil, ate dinner, took more advil, went back to bed, woke up and took more advil and drove with the random girl out to the race site. I might have taken more advil when we arrived. The night before this advil fueled adventure we realized that there was an organized course preview this day so we also had the opportunity to preview the swim course.
So what I'm saying is that I swam an open water mile and then rode my bike for 25 miles most likely with a fever that was only held at bay by the copious amounts of advil I had consumed in the preceding 18 hours. I survived, but barely.
Between T-Man and the second race in this two race tale, I was supposed to rest for a week and then transition directly into marathon training. When I threw in a come back race I didn't really deviate from that plan.
Thus in the one month between the race in which I almost quit triathlon, and my comeback race I rode my bike 4 times (one of those times was the hybrid bike at the beach and two of those times were "easy spins" on the gym bike).
So that is one bike ride on a road bike between races. And that ride?
Well, I had planned to travel to the race site early one Saturday with a random girl I met on the internet (sort of - the triathlon club message board) and pre-ride the course. We planned and discussed all week and then the Friday before the Saturday ride I left work with a fever.
A smart person would have bailed. Note: I never claimed to be smart.
I took advil, napped, took more advil, ate dinner, took more advil, went back to bed, woke up and took more advil and drove with the random girl out to the race site. I might have taken more advil when we arrived. The night before this advil fueled adventure we realized that there was an organized course preview this day so we also had the opportunity to preview the swim course.
So what I'm saying is that I swam an open water mile and then rode my bike for 25 miles most likely with a fever that was only held at bay by the copious amounts of advil I had consumed in the preceding 18 hours. I survived, but barely.
This race was all uphill. There were tons of steep, 4 mph, ifIgoanyslowerI'lltoppleoverbutIdon'tknowifIcankeepupthispacebutI'malreadygoingtooslow-
toclipoutsoI'mprettymuchscrewedisthereanicepatchofgrasstolandin
slow. And when we weren't dealing with that ... false flats. The course started and ended in the same place so there were obviously also some downhills but they were the white knuckle feather the breaks and try not to die sort of downhills - the sort of downhills on which, if you're me, you can never make up enough speed to make up for the slow, slow, slow uphills!
Honestly, I can't imagine how the people the encountered this for the first time on the day of the race handled it.
Somehow, the day after this adventure, I managed to run 19 miles. I'm still amazed that I survived that weekend. But I did survive and I threw in one extra swim (for a total of 4 bike rides and 2 swims for those keeping track at home) and then headed to the race for real ...
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