Biggest Running Week Ever!

I am stoked!  I just had one of the biggest running weeks ever and my legs, although sore, were well prepared for the challenge.

I competed in the Great Lakes Relay with 9 other amazing friends, many of whom are former MSU Tri Club teammates.  The event is a wonderful and raw display of running in it's purest form.  A three-day relay from Oscoda, MI on Lake Huron to Empire, MI on Lake Michigan totaling 273.2 miles.  Most of the runs were along the Shore to Shore Trail and the scenery was drop-dead gorgeous.

A good friend, Eric, running the first leg of the weekend.

Great shot of Scott finishing his leg and Monica about to start hers.

This is a picture I found online.  The trails looked exactly like this, but without the fall colors and horses.

All team members are "required" to run at least 24 miles over the weekend.  But you don't actually turn in any forms and no one really checks all that closely because I don't think there are any prizes for being in first place, so who cares?  Anyway, I was slated to run 33mi, the most of anyone on the team: 13mi Friday, 12mi Saturday, then 8.5mi Sunday.  I learned my lesson last year when a few friends tried out-running eachother on the first day and then were trashed for Saturday and Sunday.  So, I figured I would add extra distance on Sunday if my legs were up for it, which they certainly were.

I stuck to my assigned legs on Friday and Saturday and they were wonderful.  Sunday was the hottest day, which would making running extra distance harder.  But both Lauren and Iris had shorter-distance legs early in the day, so I decided to run with them, adding an additional 7 miles to my already assigned 8.5 for the day.  It was tough, but I managed to run with Iris and Lauren and still run my legs at a respectable pace (7:40/mi for 6mi of sandy hills, then 6:18/mi for 2.3mi on road).  I emphasized that last run because it was miles 40-42 in three days and I was shocked at the pace I was able to hold.

I've taken the past two days off to take care of a bad case of Chiggers that the team got Saturday night by camping in a field (oops).  But they're significantly better now, so I will be returning to my workouts tonight with a 4mi run and an OW swim in this 108 degree heat index day.

Ironman Wisconsin is only 7.5 weeks away, so I have time to recover this week then do a serious 3 week build before I begin a 3 week taper.

Long Day

Today was a long training day 90 mile ride on the CompuTrainer and then a 10 mile run.  I had never bricked that long before (6hrs total).  I felt like Ethan Hawke being mentored by Denzel Washington...

You wanna go to jail or you wanna go home? Huh? 

Except, that while I was biking I watched today's stage of the tour and Denzel Washington looked more like Phillipe Gilbert and Ethan Hawke was one of the Schlecks (pick your favorite in the picture).

Good luck trying to catch me you ninnies!

This is probably too long of an analogy to get to what I'm trying to say.  Basically, my 90mi ride and 10mi run schooled me just like Denzel did to Ethan and PhilGil did to the Schlecks.

My 90mi ride took me 4:40:00 (19.3mph), which is quite a bit slower than I want to ride in IMWI.  My 10mi run was wicked hot (~90deg F) and I ran out of water/heed fast.  I had to stop 6 miles in to fill up at the gas station because I had already drank 24oz of fluid.  I definitely needed more access to water/GU/food/Coke on the run.  The good news is that I think I'm a lot closer to nailing my nutrition on the bike.  I was at about 200 Cal/hour for the first 4 hours (1 scoop heed and 1 GU each hour).  Then I had a 210 Calorie PowerBar Harvest Energy bar at 3:45:00, which sat very well.  I didn't have any GI issues on the bike or run.  I had nearly 80oz of pure water and 56oz of HEED total.  I could have probably used a bit more fluid.  

Final race before Ironman WI!

So, just a few short weeks ago I raced the Warsaw Optimist Sprint Triathlon.  A dinky little race in the bustling metropolis of Warsaw, IN (where I have spent quite a bit of time for my co-op rotations).  I raced in 2010 and came in 2nd overall so I got free entry to the 2011 race.  I was excited to race as I thought my main competition from last year was on vacation in Italy and wouldn't show up.  Apparently I was wrong :(

The race was a 400m swim, 13.1mi bike, 3.55mi run.  Not ideal distances for me.  But I held my own I think.

Here are the splits:

I didn't get a good swim warm-up in, so I felt slow for the entire thing.  The bike felt great!  And on the run, my legs were gone.  However, this is the exact same time I had last year and I have been training in a completely different way this year as I'm preparing for IMWI.

Here are some quick pictures from the race

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