Morning Recap

I spent my last morning of week 14 doing my longest workout yet: a 3:30 ride followed by a 30 min. run. I woke up at 3:59 am, one minute before the alarm was set to go off. I gathered my pile of clothes, Garmin, and heart-rate monitor that I'd left in the hallway and headed downstairs. I was going to fill up all of my water bottles and get my food ready last night, but I fell asleep with the kids -- which has sadly been the norm lately.

I was on my bike by 4:30, and decided to use the Spinervals Lake Placid Ride DVD. The DVD is just under 3 hrs, so I made sure I had plenty of adrenaline-fueled music to get me through the last 40 minutes.

The ride was supposed to be done in my Zone 2 heart-rate range, which is all aerobic, but I always have a hard time getting my heart rate even that high on the bike, so it usually ends up in the high end of Zone 1 and the low end of Zone 2.  At the 3-hour mark I had to bump it up to Zone 4 for 5 mins, which is excruciating -- the longest 5 mins. ever.

I know it sounds boring to watch a DVD for 3 hours of some guy riding a bike, but I can't really focus on anything with much of a plot while I'm training, so watching the pretty scenery and making note of all of the hills actually helped pass the time.

At around 7:30 am I heard the pitter-patter of little feet over my head and knew the kids were up. Apparently they've lost interest in my suffering, because they didn't even come down to say hello.

At that point it was time for the music, and here is what got me through the brutal 5 minutes of all-out Zone 4:

The Misfits: Teenagers From Mars
New Politics: Yeah, Yeah, Yeah
AWOL Nation: It's Not Your Fault

These songs are not meant for little ears, and they need to be loud for the full heart-rate-raising effect, so head-phones are a must.

By the end of my ride, I consumed a total of: 4 1/2 full sports bottles (3 sports drink,  1 1/2 water), a peanut butter and honey sandwich, a banana, and 2 Gu's. I was down to the dregs with my Gu's, and ended up with a Huckleberry flavor, which was as bad it is sounds.

The fact that I only had to make 1 pit stop during my ride means that most of those sports bottles wound up soaking my basement floor. I sweat an incredible amount. I always put an old dishtowel over my bike while I ride the trainer so the sweat won't get all over my components and corrode the hardware, and by the end of this ride, it was sopping wet. Gross!

With the ride done, I quickly got my running gear on, said a quick hello/goodbye to my family and did my 30 min run. I actually felt really good! Although good is a relative term here, meaning I didn't throw up, fall down, or crawl back to my house Julie Moss-style.

It was a great way to end the week. The weather was cool and sunny, my heart-rate stayed right where it was supposed to be, and I maintained 9:30-9:40 minute miles. It was a good confidence-builder.

On to week 15!!