Goodbye Sleep. Nice knowing you.

I think I have resigned myself to the fact that I will be sleeping in no longer.  At least not until this race is over with.  As the day heats up and we reach those 90+ temps, I will no longer have the luxury of start a workout at 10 am.  It also makes quite a different that I will no longer be biking anything under 50 miles or running anything under 9/10.  I'll have to look at the schedule, but I am pretty sure we've hit that point.

The training has been going pretty okay.  The weekend of the 20th and 21st was a bit rough only because I was in Florida for a sign language conference.  This meant that most of my training scheduled was completely thrown off.  I only got in 7 hours of training that week.  I am beginning to get uber sensitive about how much time I am putting into each week.  I think I am also at the point of where the numbers will not dip below 10 hours each week.  I have a general plan of what I am doing each week, but definitely should tighten it up some.

I think it really hit me this past weekend in biking 70 miles.  70 miles.  I still have a hard time wrapping my head around it.  I didn't hate it, which is a huge step up in my biking because in the past, biking has definitely not been my strong point.  But going 70 this weekend, well, it definitely helped in making me feel like I am on the right track.  Learned some things along the way:

The biggest thing was the need to figure out a better plan for nutrition.  I don't think I was taking enough in and I could tell towards the end.  Could feel my body kinda bonking some.  So-will definitely be adjusting that.  I also could really feel the heat.  There were some stretches where it was just straight highway and the sun was beating down on you...I have to figure out a heat plan since I am not strong in hot weather.  I think some of it will come as I get more used to this increase in temperatures.  I found that spraying myself with water helped a little bit, but this also means that I will go through water more quickly.

I wonder if I could attach some kind of sun umbrella to my helmet.  Probably wouldn't be very aero.  Hmm...

It ended up being a good bike though.  Despite noticing not enough nutrition and some adjustment to the heat, it was decent.  I worry that the bike will not be strong enough and this is where I need to be the strongest.  I have to remember that in going forward and in pushing myself.  It will all be worth it come race day and there is so little time between now and then.

All in all, this week totaled 12 hours worth of biking, running, and swimming.  And that was with only 2 swims.  I copped out of the last swim after a rough 9 mile run on sunday.  I think I will save that story for another post.