End in Sight

Heading into the last big week of training before the taper begins. This is week is number 27 of a 30 week plan. Wow already?! Just finished up the 2nd to last big weekend of training so only one more long ride and run left.

Saturday morning a few storms rolled through town which pushed things back a bit. Eric and I were going to meet at the Bike Stop at 6:30am but it was still raining so we decided to wait a bit longer to leave. In order to get my time in and avoid being gone all day, I hit the trainer for a while and got a head start on the ride. Got in an hour and forty five minutes or 30 miles waiting for the roads to dry a bit.

Once the roads dried enough Eric rode out to my house and we did a big loop out to the south and then he pealed off to his house to get in a transition run and I headed on home. Once I got home I got my own transition run going. Actually felt pretty good getting off the bike and felt decent on the run.

All in all I got in 95 miles (30 on the trainer and 65 on the roads) and a 6 mile trans run.

*A note on nutrition:
I'm still trying to get a better handle on the energy requirements for these long workout and specifically what will be required for Ironman... Saturday's long ride and trans run nutrition consisted of the following:

Pre workout:
1 whole wheat bagel with a bit of strawberry jam = 400 calories

Ride:
3 bottles of Gatorade = 600 calories
2 Power Bars = 480 calories
4 HammerGels = 400 calories

Run:
1 GU gel = 100 calories

*** Plus two water bottles of water (approx. 48 oz). Total fluid intake of 120 oz or 20 oz per hour.

Total of 1980 calories or 330 calories per hour for the 6 hour workout. This amount seemed to do okay for me. From what I've read, 350 calories is about the right number. I didn't have one moment of a bonking feeling. I'll try it again this weekend on the looooong Saturday we have planned and see if it works again.

Sunday, myself, Jared, Troy, Eric, Christopher, Brian and Jason met down on the Little Blue Trace for the long run. Again, felt okay and had pretty good energy although a bit heavy legs. I'm not sure if I am happy with getting used to running a slow pace or not... I know the Ironman pace is or should be around 9:00 pace for me but it's been weird running that slow on these runs.
Jared and I got dropped pretty good during this run as we tried to maintain our "race" pace. Once back to the parking lot, everyone else was finished, but I needed to get in 2:45:00 so I continuted on. Fortunately Troy came along as well so I had some comany for the last hour.

I will say this, the slower pace made the last mile much better than last week when an 8:26 pace really made the last mile or so very difficult.

Run total: 18.91 miles, 2:45:05, avg HR 145