Bloomsday Weekend

Well, as promised, the weather turned around this weekend for the annual rite of spring in the Inland Northwest, Bloomsday. My spirits were buoyed when, for the first time this year, I noticed a flowering cherry tree in full bloom while I was on the bus home Friday afternoon. It was definitely a welcome sight.

Saturday, I decided against driving all the way out to CDA to ride the course, because we had to meet up with Jessi, Emma and Steve in the afternoon to pick up Bloomsday numbers. So, I headed out on the road for a solo 75 mile bike. I knew it would be a tough effort, because I always find it hard to motivate myself and stay positive when I'm riding by myself. But, I knew that it had to be done! I rode the reverse of the Troika course out to Medical Lake, then took a quick spin around Clear Lake before heading home. The first half was tough, because it was mostly uphill, so I decided not to look at my speed and just focus on keeping a good, high cadence. As always, the Coulee Hite section was the hardest on me mentally, but I felt like I handled the hills pretty good. Out in Medical Lake, I saw Amanda Berquist who was just finishing up her ride, and we chatted for a bit...always nice to see some friendly faces out on the road when you feel like you are a million miles from home. After a quick stop at the lake to refuel, I looked at my average, just to see how much I could bump it up on the inward half. I was only at 17.3mph at this point. The next time I looked, 3 miles from home, my average was up to 18.1mph. Excellent. I tried pushing the second half a bit harder, and it was nice to see the payoff. After just over 4 hours in the saddle and 75 miles, I felt amazingly fresh. Usually, efforts like this would have sent me straight to the couch for the rest of the day. So I was pretty happy that I felt energized and ready to go after a quick shower and my trusty can of FRS. It was a good day on the bike...almost too good? :) We'll see.....

Andy and I headed out to pick up Jessi, Emma and Steve, then we headed down to the Bloomsday trade show to pick up our numbers (yellow for all!!!) We had a really fun afternoon trying on sunglasses, having breath holding competitions (warning: do not enter one of these competitions with Emma...she knows a secret and will beat you soundly :), and a well-deserved pre-race meal at Pita Pit. The trade show was kind of weird, with alot of non-running-related booths, but oh well, Bloomsday isn't about the trade show for me. Saturday night ended early, after setting out my gear for the morning. It was kind of nice and weird at the same time to just get running stuff together.

Sunday morning dawned sunny, but cool: perfect racing weather. We picked up Steve at 7:15am and headed downtown. I felt very relaxed, since I really didn't have a goal time I was going for, and I knew I had a second loop to look forward to. After finding a parking spot, we grabbed our pre-race FRS's for an energy boost, then set off for Starbucks to meet up with Zach.

After finding Zach and waiting for the first of Steve's many bathroom breaks, we found our spot in the corral. About an hour later, we started our slow walk to the line and the bedlam began. Steve was shooting for a sub-52, and our plan was for me to pace him. Having seen him run, I knew that plan wouldn't last long, and it didn't, as he was off like a bullet once we hit the starting line. My first mile felt a bit sluggish, and I knew early on that the race was going to be more of a struggle than the last 2 years. I hit Mile 1 at 6:33, with Steve still in sight, but just barely. I actually thought that if I could keep up that pace, I'd have a chance to beat my time from last year...funny what a race will do to rational thought! After tearing down the hill to Latah Creek with Zach and Cameron in tow, I attempted to settle into a comfortable pace, and felt relatively good going up the first hill. I got a nice boost of energy from Jessi who still had the energy to scream some words of encouragement to me...I could only glance back and smile weakly. Probably not a good sign. Just before the first water stop, Steve suddenly appeared at my shoulder, and I guessed correctly that he had relented and made the pit stop he had been begging for back in the corral. We ran together up Cemetary Hill, and then Steve put on a surge down the slight incline that I didn't have the legs to cover. Game over, at Mile 3. Up past the college, Steve was still within striking distance, but my mind wandered backward and forward: backward to my 75 miles on the bike yesterday, and forward to the second loop that I had stupidly agreed to. So I decided not to push the pace. Well, actually, it was my quads that made that decision :) As I watched Steve set off in search of Eric as he glided down the hill to TJ Meenach Bridge, I tried to let gravity do its thing. Fortunately the hill was short, so my weakness wasn't exposed too much. Unfortunately, Doomsday loomed ahead. I struggled up Doomsday much more this year than the past 2 years, but I was still able to pass quite a few people. However, when I got to the top, I didn't have the energy in my legs to drop my pace to the finish, so I just tried to keep my pace even and wait until the last few blocks to start my kick. When I looked at my watch at 10k, I knew that sub-52 was out the window, but I wasn't really concerned. Somehow, though, when I made the last turn to the finish, I was still under 52, and if I had really kicked all out those last 2 blocks, I might have made it. But, since I wasn't really concerned about it, I cruised in to finish in 52:12.

After meeting up with Steve and Jessi, we waited to say hi to some of our other Tri-Fusion friends, and recount our awesome days. Like Jessi's 6 min PR. And like Tiffany's 11 min PR!!! Andy came in shortly after, having another great day, and we then set off to gather our coveted finishers shirts (red this year...not too bad). We met up with Joe, and after a quick stop at the car to refuel, Joe and I set off for our second loop.

We didn't catch the end of the field until about Mile 2, and then the re-energizing comments began from behind us as we passed people. Like "Oh my goodness, I think they are doing it again!" The crowd this year was much more spread out, and we were able to pretty much run full-stride the whole way. From Doomsday on, though we were forced to run on the sidewalks, and had to do a bit of weaving, but we still finished in a respectable time (1:06:00). Joe practically dragged me in the last 2 miles, but I was very pleased with my effort and how my body managed the second loop. Perhaps it was the Guinness that was waiting for me at the bar....it has now become tradition to meet up at O'Doherty's after a second loop for a beer. Nice recovery drink!! It took me a while to get thru the beer though, because I was spent. A hard weekend had finally caught up with me. Joe and Meredith kindly gave me a ride home, and then I discovered a wonderful treat Andy had for me in the freezer...it seems that she and Steve didn't forget about me while they were at Maggie Moo's and I was out still running. A HUGE shake awaited me, and it was damn good.

Later that afternoon, we picked up Steve and headed up to the Gallagher's for a nice, relaxing BBQ and a recovery soak in their hot tub. It felt really good to just sit around and do nothing. It was the perfect end to a really productive and super fun weekend! Congrats to everyone on their awesome races, and thanks to Andy, Steve, Jessi, Emma, Greg, and Natalie for lots of laughs, fun and friendship!

Thursday triathlon

Happy May Day! The weather may (ha ha ha, no pun intended :) have finally turned the corner, as today was a sunny, warm day. And this weekend, being Bloomsday, temps are supposed to approach 70. Whoa!!!

Today's workouts started out with a swim at lunch. After doing 10 x 50s for a warmup, I believe that a pool-gnome secretly began moving the wall in my lane back toward the parking lot, because my 10 x 150s took forever! Sometimes 200s seem to zoom by as if they were 25s, and sometimes 50s feel like 500s. Today's swim was definitely in the latter category. But, I'm glad I toughed it out mentally and got my 2000m in. Maybe it was because I was so looking forward to my evening workouts.....

....which began with a fun group meeting up at Thompson's house. Jessi and I had coordinated ahead of time to do a brick/transition practice, so I was excited to see just how much about T2 I had forgotten since last year :) Turns out, it was ALOT. I was also excited that Andy decided to join the group and do her last 5m run before Bloomsday while we were out on the bikes. She didn't know this before she committed, but every direction from Thompson's house includes a hill, so I was proud of her for tackling those hills and toughing out her 5 miles. My other 2 pieces of excitement were a) the arrival of my speedy new aero helmet, and b) the reuniting of Team A+ and the long-awaited A+ photo shoot.

After getting changed and ready to go, our cycling group hit the road for an hour ride. As we turned the first corner, I found myself second wheel, which could only mean one thing: I was stuck and bascially forced into keeping up with Roger. Yikes. Of course I suppose I could have always pulled out of line and hung back, but, come on, really, would I ever let myself do that? :) So it was Roger, me, Jessi, Steve and Eric and we quickly approached warp speed as we tore across Hwy 2 and out toward the Peone loop. By the time I dared take my eyes off Roger's wheel, it was just us two and Jessi, who almost got taken out by a wonderful Spokane driver. The hammer never came up, and before I knew what hit me, we were heading back and I had somehow survived. I even somehow ended up in front as we went past Mead HS on our way in, and I'm sure that Roger and Jessi appreciated the easy pace I was doing :) As I was gasping for breath and screaming down the hill toward the house, it was time to start thinking about T2, so I got out of my shoes ok and hit my "transition area" (aka, a towel, running shoes and visor in the garage). Of course Jessi smoked me in transition, and she absolutely tore out onto the "run course" so I just had to chase her down. :) Super, lets just get anaerobic right out of the gate and get it over with. I finally caught her and we proceeded to scream down the hill towards St Georges, convinced that my legs would fall off at any moment. Fortunately for me, the road finally pitched up and I was able to test out my uphill running legs. Amazingly, they were there, and I actually felt better going up the hills than down. But in reality, that happens alot. I even think that "Tim" is Latin for "can go uphill great, can't go downhill for crap". Anyway, after a leg- and lung-searing mile or so, I turned around and headed back. I tried to keep the pace high, and it was a struggle, but fortunately it wasn't too far back to the house. The overall damage for the brick was as follows:

Bike: 20.6m in 57:15, 21.6mph average (!)

T2: painfully slow

Run: 2.35m in 15:53, 6:45 pace

Here's Jessi before the brick. This smile means "I'm going to beat Tim like a drum and the poor sucker has no idea....he he he he"

After I retreived my legs and lungs from the side of the road, we all hung around for an awesome meal and then the real fun began. I will direct you to the blogs of my A+ teammates for their perspective, but here's my take: thank goodness I got to be the '+' and just got to lay on the floor with my arms out. In reality, it was alot like many of my post-workout sessions: lay on the floor for awhile and try to recover.

The main difference was that we were laughing our butts off while everyone else was standing around either a) taking thousands of pictures or b) wondering why they chose to hang out with such crazy people. In the end (yes, pun intended, A+) we did get a good shot. I'm happy we finally got our symbol on film, though I must admit that the process wore me out. Again, good thing all I had to do was lay on the floor!! :)

It was a wonderful evening of workouts, friends, laughing and food. Definitely the kind of night that makes me glad to be a triathlete.

Lilac Century

The weekend started with a nice Saturday of sleeping in and running some errands with Andy, bracketed around a 3000yd swim, and ending with a fun wine party at the Flowers'. My swim went very well, even though I was all alone :( I made it thru the whole workout in under 55 min, including breaks, which I felt very good about. I was even doing my 100s on the 1:40 and my 150s on the 2:30. I think I was more motivated to get the workout over than to get some extra rest, so I constantly heard Roger's voice in my head saying "READY??....OK, HERE WE GO" After looking at the Sunday swim workout that some crazy person put together, maybe it was best for me to do my own thing! :) Really, I did miss my Sunday swimming-mates, especially when I saw their handstand contest! But they did put together a super-nice tribute to me...its nice to be thought of and missed. You guys are awesome!!

After probably a bit too much wine the evening prior, Sunday dawned with a beautiful sunrise at about 5:30am while I was eating breakfast and getting my gear together. Kirk picked me up at precisely 6:28am, and we were off to SFCC for the Lilac Century 100 mile ride. It was a bit chilly waiting around for the start, but I handled it ok leading up to the 7:30am start. The first 20 miles were, for me, damn cold. But fortunately I had some Tri-Fusion teammates, Kathi, Katie, Matt, Dave, Tasha to chat with and take my mind off my frozen fingers. My plan was to ride conservatively thru the first 2 rest stops, hoping to save my legs for the mentally tough last 30 miles and my post-ride run, and I think I managed to do just that. I linked up with a few different riders and groups occasionally, but I really felt like I was riding my own ride. At the first rest stop, Matt Cusack and I joined up and rode most of the remainder of the ride together, and it was nice to have someone to ride and chat with, especially as the miles wore on and the pack thinned out. It can get quite lonely out there, unlike the 112 miles of the Ironman. We found Dave Lawrence at the bottom of the hill to Reardan, and the 3 of us powered our way up, up, up until we pulled into Reardan. The last 2 years, this section has been a struggle for me, so it was a very nice feeling to have lots of energy under me and feel like I was really moving well up the hill. Except for the guy who was climbing this long hill in the big chainring (!), I don't think we got passed by anyone.

After Reardan, it was into the headwinds, although mercifully they weren't too stiff. Matt dropped back a bit, so I was left to fight out the last 30 miles solo, which, even though it meant I wouldn't be able to get any drafting help, turned out to be a good test of my mental strength. I am not a cyclist by nature, so any long efforts usually turn into a test of my mind as much as my legs. Today, I felt great the whole way, never really got frustrated or "down", and didn't let my pace slack off. Of course my butt and shoulders and neck and legs were feeling worn down when I rolled into the finish line, but nowhere near as bad as the last 2 years. It was a good day in the saddle, to be sure. Total damage: 101.67 miles, 5:49:14 in the saddle, avg 17.4mph. I was not concerned about going fast today, and it showed :) Oh well, this ride was all about time on the bike, so...mission accomplished! I also did some nutritional experimenting during this ride, and was happy to find a good PowerBar option that seemed to set well in my system.

After I got back to SFCC, I roused Kirk from his post-ride and potato nap, and grabbed my running stuff from the truck. Secretly, I was hoping that since he had been done with his ride and run for about 6 hours (ok, maybe 2, but sheesh he's fast!) he would tell me that he really needed to get back home, which would've meant I didn't need to run. But, really, would Kirk ever let me get out of a workout? Ha! So, off I went for what I hoped was 2 of the 5k loops the ride organizers had generously marked out. It appears that a baked potato and salsa are really good for brick recovery, because Kirk quickly finished his potato and joined me on my first loop. So, lets see...Kirk does 100+ miles on the bike at over 20mph average, then runs 10k, then has a potato, and still wants to run 5k more with me??? Are you kidding me? As I watched him run away from me quickly up the hills, I was reminded once again how freaking hard core this guy is. But I am really thankful for all the workouts he's dragged me thru over the past 3 years, because I know they have made me so much stronger. I limped in to the finish of my first loop, and this time actually begged Kirk to please, please, please tell me that he really did have to get going and couldn't wait around any longer for me to finish my workout. As I descended the hill away from the college, I realized how silly this request was. I darn near crawled up the steepest parts of the hills, but absolutely refused to walk. I'm not sure why, since if this was in any way an IM prep day, I would have been walking at every aid station, but I kept my legs moving at just slightly above walking speed. In hindsight, I am happy that I didn't give in...I think I may be recalling those 2 miles at some point in time while I'm out on the IM course. :) I finished up my run and was absolutely spent. Kirk and a few others stood around watching me get changed and packed up "very quickly" (a.k.a. "Geez, Tim, could you move any slower???") Then I looked at my watch and realized why I was moving so darn slow. I had somehow managed to run 10k in 8:07 pace. Damn. After riding 100 miles. I think my watch may have been on someone else's wrist, but if it really was me, I'll take that any day!!! I certainly don't think I'll be anywhere close to that at Ironman, but I secretly think this may bode well for things to come in, oh, say, 55 days? :)

Andy and I ended the day with what has become sort of a tradition for me after a long workout or race, a burger and beer at The Onion. Matt, Jessie and Steve joined us, and we had fun recapping our day. And in yet another testament to why she is the worlds greatest IronSherpa, Andy again wonderfully put up with me and my tri friends going on and on endlessly about triathlons. All in all...a good day!!!

BLT and swimming and running and....

Wow, that kind of sounds like a triathlon...thank goodness I did all those things over the span of 3 days. Wonder what it would be like to do them all in the same day? :)
I have been wanting to do a long time trial in the pool for a few weeks now, since I am cautiously optimistic that all this swimming I've been doing has or will pay off. So, Tuesday, I talked some of the EWU tri club athletes to agree to count laps while I swam a 1950m time trial (because I knew there was no way I could count to 39) The swim went really well, and I was pleased with my pacing and how I doled out my effort. I could have probably gone a bit faster, but I sort of wanted to use it as a dress rehersal for IM. My time was 34:10, which was right about where I thought I'd be. Simply doubling that works out to a sub-1:10:00 IM swim, which would make me exceptionally happy. I know that there are many other factors, both good and bad, that will come into play (drafting, wetsuit, water conditions, race day adrenaline, etc), but after my swim I felt very good about where I'm at in the water.
Tuesday after work, I linked up with the BLT group for the second loop, and quickly joined in on the fast-paced fun. The pace picked up a bit earlier than the last few weeks, but I was able to hang on ok. I even led the pace line for a bit, which felt good, until my 30 seconds were up :) Toward the end, I could feel the soreness from Sunday's race creeping back into my legs, but I'm glad I got out there and hopefully flushed some of the lactic acid out. It wasn't my best ride ever, but hey, 20 miles is better than nothing!
Wednesday, while I was on the bus home, I really didn't feel like getting out for a run. But, fortunately Andy was there when I got home to guilt me into it. For some reason, its easier to run when someone you know is also out there on the same course...and when its your wife, hey, bonus!! It was another sub-8 run, but only 4+ miles, and it was a struggle. My running legs had most certainly not recovered 100% from Sunday. I'm supposed to run 6 tonight with Steve...wonder how that'll go?? My only hope is that he had a hard speedwork session on Wed, and is looking for an easy, recovery run.
Today I was tight on my lunch timeframe to get a swim in, so I hit the water precisely at the stroke of noon, did a quick 50 warmup, then proceeded right into my descending mile. I would have liked to have gone farther, but with limited time, I decided to just do my "fall-back" workout that I know I can get done in about 30 min. I felt great the whole way, pushing the pace, but not so much that I was gasping for air. Previously, my total time including rest for this workout was in the mid- to low-29s, so it was a pleasant surprise to see 27:52 on my watch when I hit the wall for the last time! Keats and I shared a lane, and it was great to have someone pushing me. Except for the fact that I was barely keeping up with a guy who has a broken rib and who has done like zero training over the past month or so. Damn. But, I guess that's why he's been to Kona, and I'm still stuck trying to find Kona on the map :) Now, I just need to not get too overconfident that I'm going easily to rip off a 1:10:00 IM swim....maybe I'll just focus on a PR.....
The weather is still crappy. Cold, windy, cloudy. Fortunately I only have to run tonight, so I can manage the weather. This weekend looks nice, which is good for me, since I've got the Lilac Century ride on tap. Longest ride of the year, followed by (hopefully) a 6m run. I'm tired already after just typing that!

Spokane River Run

This weekend was my first race since the Snake River 1/2 Marathon in early March, and I was very interested to see how my running fitness has responded since I've been running more consistently over the past few weeks.
To warm up, I was supposed to do a long swim and long-ish bike on Saturday, which (as expected :) turned into just a long swim. Oh well. After my big bike week last week and a century coming up this next weekend, I wasn't too concerned about getting a ride in this weekend. And I knew that the race on Sunday would beat up my legs pretty good. Thinking back, I was pretty happy with myself that I actually got into the pool and did a long workout by myself. Last year, this never would have happened. But I did get 3500 in, which included, just for fun, a 500yd time trial.
Sunday the weather forecast called for possible snow and cold temps. Uh, its April. Come on. Really? Well, at least I'm not as much of a weather wimp on the run as I am on the bike. I actually kind of enjoy running in inclement weather. It was cold at the start, but I was confident I would warm up nicely (I did). For those that have never done the Spokane River Run, I will describe it: trail race, very few flat sections, some very challenging rocky footing sections, some scary steep descents, and some hands-pushing-on-knees steep climbs. Or, TOUGH! They had 4 distances to choose from: 50k (next year, maybe), 25k, 10k, 5k. For the third year in a row, I opted for the 25k, with the only goal this year being to not get lost. My plan was to run conservatively, since I knew the difficulty of the course start to finish, and since I knew my run fitness was a bit behind last year. I ran most of the race w/ Brian right on my heels, which served to keep the pace honest, even though we went out a tick fast, at 7:30s. But I wasn't concerned so much about the pace, since I knew the hills would slow me up. I basically just wanted to run on "feel" and see what happened. About 3 miles in, the snow started, and while it wasn't sticking to the trail, it was flying pretty good...enough to make you have to squint to see where you were going. Fortunately at this point I was with a pack of other runners, so I wasn't forced to watch the course signs as closely. I made it thru 10 miles feeling pretty good, and then the gorgeous blue skies and sun came out, and it actually started feeling a bit warm. Wait, this IS the same race that it was snowing at, right??? This is how you know that a) you are doing a long race, or b) you are racing in Spokane, the capital of micro-climates. Over the last 5 miles, I didn't really feel like I let my pace drop that much, except when I was forced to slow up. That would be when we caught up to the back of the 10k pack. It was a bit frustrating, since I don't recall this happening in other years, but we 25k'ers were definitely running faster than the 10k'ers. Normally not a problem, except we were on very narrow, rocky trails right next to the river. Hmmm, so I had to bide my time for a bit behind some folks, take some risks getting around them, and try to ask as politely as possible if I could pass some others. Fortunately, I knew we were almost to the finish, so it was really only about the last 2 miles that I had to fight this. One positive benefit of this race planning snafu was that for those last 2 miles, I always had people ahead to key off of and run down. As the trail opened up onto the finishing section, I opened it up as much as I could and pushed for the tape, refusing to look at my time or HR :) My legs, as predicted and expected were dead once I finished, but thank goodness the kind folks from FRS were on hand to supply me with their liquid gold: Low Cal Peach Mango!! My official time was 2:04:44, which was a PR by almost 8:00. Whoa!! I am truly shocked that I was able to average 8:02's on that course, so that made me very happy. Overall, I finished 21st out of 168, and I finished 4th in my age group out of 18, which is sort of a bummer, but they were 10 year age groups, and I really wasn't expecting anything anyway, so, oh well. But....I'm not sure how many more 4th place age group finishes I can reasonably expected to handle :) Ok, probably alot more, as long as I'm having fun! However, I did not come away empty handed, as in the random number drawing, I won a pair of cool sandles/boat shoes/Teva-like things. Kind of on the weird side, but, hey, maybe they'll help me break out of my shell a bit! :)
It was a good day all in all, and I'm glad to have gotten another long run under my belt. Because of the difficulty of the course, I consider this to be more than a 15.5 mile day...probably closer to 18 on a normal, road run.
Overall, I am very happy with where my training is right now, especially since I felt like I lost alot of time because of my foot injury. This weekend started my string of 7 races in 10 weeks leading up to Ironman, and I must say, I am very happy to get into the part of my season where I get to pin some numbers on my chest. I love racing, love the nervous excitement while waiting for the gun to go off, love rehashing the race and reveling in the post-race glory with Andy, friends and teammates, love that "good hurt" feeling in my body that tells me I had a good effort. Because, really, at the end of the day, those are the things I really race for, not an age group medal........

Big ole brick

After much negotiations and work schedule tweaking, Kirk and I met up for our inaugural Wednesday IM-prep brick in CDA. I haven't trained much with Kirk this year, but last year I am convinced that all the miles I put in with (or more acurately 'near') him really helped make me faster. He never lets me slack off, but also never makes me feel bad for holding him up.

So we met up at 11am, and the weather for the afternoon looked cool, but dry. The wind was up a bit, and I was somewhat apprehensive about how I would handle it, since I knew I'd be riding most of the day on my own. We set out from CDA Oz on the same 42 mile loop I had ridden on Saturday, and settled into a nice pace (thank you, tailwinds!) It took awhile for my legs to come around, but once we started the climbing, I amazingly felt pretty good. As I hit the first big hill of the course, I decided to do a little test to see if yesterday's Death Hill round 2 experiences were a fluke or not. I successfully made it up that first big hill seated, which was a big-time confidence booster. I specifically remember last year at IM how I was passing people on this hill pretty easily on both loops, and how that really made me feel good about my day. Knowing that we were only doing 1 loop, I felt ok about pushing the hills a little harder, and I was very happy that I made most of the course seated. The only times I really got out of the saddle was for a break....I think I could have easily made the whole loop seated if I had to. Coming back into town, I got caught up by a few lights/intersections, so Kirk dropped me pretty good. But it was a good chance for me to test out my mental strength as I was left to battle the headwinds solo. Compared to past rides, I felt pretty good with how I managed the conditions. Maybe a positive sign for things to come?? We'll see......

Once we got back to Oz, we changed into our running gear, refueled a bit and headed out to run one modified loop of the course. I'm not sure what I was thinking at this point, but I was assuming that by cutting out the City Park/NIC out-and-back section, that our run would end up being somewhere in the 9 mile range. Fortunately, fear kept me from looking at my watch for distance or pace during the run, and its a good thing I did not, because we ended up logging 11.2 miles. Whoa!! Kirk and I ran together out to the turnaround, and then, as I knew he would, Kirk slowly pulled away until I could no longer see him around the corners. The pace felt fairly steady thru 6, but there was no way I could have gone any faster without totally blowing up. The last 4 were a big-time struggle, and it felt like I was crawling. In hindsight, it was probably a good dress rehearsal for managing the discomfort and mental hurdles I know I'm going to face on race day. But, I'm happy to say that I did not stop and walk, even though I was sorely tempted to on a number of occasions. I was sure that I was averaging somewhere in the mid- to high-9:00s, so I was absolutely shocked and ecstatic when I saw my pace was 8:31! Maybe there is hope for a fast IM marathon after all!! I can't wait until our next Wed brick, to see if there is any improvement.

It was a great day, and the end of the longest, toughest stretch I've had so far this year. And my body knew it. I ended up doing an easy 2000 meter pull-buoy swim on Thursday just to keep my body moving, but after that, my body was screaming for a break. So this weekend, I'm going to do an easy 2.5hr ride and then try and run a conservative race at the Spokane River Run. Oh yeah, and its supposed to snow this weekend. Nice. Its April. Late April. Oh well...

BLT #2

Today was our second Bike Loop Tuesdays, and we hosted this one...which really came down to offering up our street for parking :) A really good group turned out, and I was happy to see some new faces (Kim, Jeff, Trevor) and some faces I hadn't seen in awhile (Kathi). I think there were about 16 or so of us out there. I always wonder what other people on the roads are thinking when they come around a corner and see 15-20 cyclists spinning down the road...what the heck, is the Tour de France in town or something??? Secretly, I always feel pretty darn cool being part of a group that gets weird or envious looks :)
The first 2/3 of the loops we took pretty easy, just chatting and (for me) spinning the legs out. I got a bit farther up Death Hill 1 in the saddle, which was nice because I always use my ability to climb Death Hills 1 and 2 seated vs. standing as a barometer of my overall fitness. Last week, my first time on them, I was up almost immediately after they started. This week...a little better! Once we hit AL White Parkway, the hammer dropped and I found myself hanging on for dear life to the back of the paceline. I made it, and while there was no way in heck I was going to be able to move up to do any pulling, it was still fun to be bombing along the road at those speeds.
After a quick rest stop back at the house, we headed out for loop 2. I was praying that we'd keep the pace easy again, knowing what was coming for tomorrow, and the group nicely obliged. Steve and I challenged eachother to see if we could make it up Death Hill 1 seated, and while it was a struggle, I made it. That made me pretty happy...second loop of the day, which means I should not be as fresh, but I did better that round 1. Just goes to show you what a little motivation does! As a side note, Steve again put me in my place, as he did the hill IN AERO!!! Damn...I've never been able to do that...ever. Death Hill 2 came around and here we went again...2 for 2 seated on the second loop! Sweet!! The hammer dropped again as we hit the golf course, and I managed it ok. I even pulled out to lead for a bit, but that extra effort meant I was unable to pull the group up to the lead 3. I almost got there, but one moment of hesitation, and it was all over. Still, once the rest of us got linked up, we didn't let them get too far away. I'm really enjoying riding in pacelines, and I can feel my confidence with tight-quarters riding increasing. Overall, it was a fun 32 miles.
After, Steve and I hung around for awhile deciding what post-ride food reward we had earned, and we decided on some ice cream at Maggie Moo's. Poor Steve had to ride up the hill home, so I scarfed down some quick dinner, then headed out to meet up w/ him. Andy joined us as I was finishing up a kick-ass milkshake, then it was crash-city when my head hit the pillow. All in all, a pretty darn good day!!