It's hard to believe Rev3 Cedar Point is almost here. Only 3 weeks from today and I will be racing in my first full-Ironman distance triathlon!
Today was a big workout for me. I've had it marked in red on my calendar for the past few months. It was my official "race simulation" bike/run brick. I woke up at 5:00 AM and ate the same breakfast I plan to eat on race day. I gathered my copious amount of water bottles together (as pictured above!) and headed out for an 85 mile ride at 7:00 AM. Thankfully, the weather stayed pretty cool (65-75 F) and overcast throughout most of the morning and I had a fantastic ride. I nailed my target power output within 1 watt of my planned race pace. I felt great as I finished the ride and am confident in both my pacing and nutrition strategy for the bike leg of the Ironman.
At the end of my ride, I rolled into the garage at home and made a quick transition and jumped on the treadmill to start my 15 mile run. Unfortunately, the clouds disappeared and the temperature quickly warmed up to the upper 80's F. Despite the fact that I was in the shaded garage with a big fan blowing directly on me, it sure was hot! Nonetheless, I still had a great run. I didn't have much problem hitting my target pace for the 15 miles. As I neared the end my run however, I realized that it is going to take a significant amount of "digging deep" on race day to suffer through the rest of the marathon. After working out for 6 hours straight, I was certainly ready to get of the treadmill and go inside to take a snooze!
Tomorrow is a complete rest day and then I'll begin the first of my 3 taper weeks. This volume for this first week of taper is only dialed back a bit, but it is still a nice feeling to know that my longest workouts are behind me! In general, as I taper I will be incrementally decreasing the volume but keeping the intensity relatively high. I will still be throwing in a handful of lactate threshold and vo2 max intervals on both the bike and the run to keep the "snap" in my legs until race day.
T-minus 3 weeks!
No comments:
Post a Comment