Ironman Training - Longest Outdoor Bike Ride - April 5, 2014

It's been 2 weeks since my 50K, and I am so glad that I have a coach to dial back my workouts so that my body can heal and recover.  Normally, I would keep pushing and trying to beat my previous time or distance.  This time, I messaged my coach and gave her an update on how my body felt and if anything hurt.  Coach Danielle Sullivan from IronFit Endurance adjusted my schedule, moving the workouts around.  During my 50K I slipped and got whiplash, so my neck was stiff.  She moved my recovery swim to this week.  I know that if I attempted to swim, I would probably not be able to swim for another week.   After my 50K, my foot did not hurt until a few days later.  So she had me do easy spinning on my bike, and eventually I got to test my foot this past Thursday.   The foot felt good, almost 100% and enough to run for 3 miles.

With the the help of Champion Performance, they released some trigger points and broke up some adhesion in my neck and foot, that helped me a lot.  My body feels so much better and more prepared to workout.

I remember when I started out running, I was totally clueless,  I would run through pain, have bad form, workouts alone about 99% of the time, and did many crazy training ideas that no one should do.  Fast forward to 2014, I have a coach, a team of health professionals, supporting family, and more friends who are endurance athletes that I can talk to.  Not sure knowing what I know now would have made a difference in 2014.  What I do know is that I have a lot more friends who are getting healthier and fit because I decided to sign up for the 2008 NYC Marathon.

Getting back to my longest outdoor ride of 2014, my guess that with each month, I will get to say that this is my longest ride of 2014 :)  I was a little anxious about riding today, since it was misty last night.  The roads got drier by the time I headed out this morning.  I rode around my hilly neighborhood, getting lost and making a few u-turns because of dead end streets.

Plenty of shifting, getting use to the aerobottle between my handlebars, and testing different nutrition.  Today, a combination of coconut water, heed and ice for my hydration.  For food, I tried the HoneyStinger (Strawberry) and Nature's Bakery Fig Bar (Blueberry).  No belly issues today!  Usually I don't have GI issues in general, and my coach wants to make sure I am prepared!

I was concerned about the saddle, and the Cobb Plus seemed to be good.  I've been trying out different saddles and riding outdoors versus on the indoor trainer makes a difference.  We shall see when the rides get longer and longer.

Based on my stats today, it will take me 7 hours and 45 minutes to finish my bike portion of the Ironman.  Working on getting that down to 6.   29 miles in 2 hours, now I can beat the Kenyans!

Wipe down the Tardis and off to be the taxi for the kids!