Fifteen

Well, for 11 miles yesterday things went brilliantly. I was clipping along, effortlessly, at around a 9:40 pace, with delusions of wrapping up 15 miles well under a 10:00 pace and all the earth would sing my praises. Then I bonked with a magnificent thud, and by the final mile I was struggling in the mid-elevens. Finished with a 10:03 pace - fine, consistent with my other runs and what I'm wanting to achieve, but those last 4 - especially 3 - miles seriously did me in. And I was pretty messed up for the next several hours until I was finally able to get some serious calories and simple sugars in me. So strange, the bonk. So not a good time. I should've had a bigger dinner the night before, a bigger breakfast, and a bigger lunch. Stupid early season mistakes. Yet - 15 miles in the first week of March is a good thing. I'm feeling right back on target for my May marathon, and that this early season long distance running is going to change the game when I'm racing Half Iron this year. Dope.

Anyway, other than that, a pretty decent week of training. My whole "just relax" approach seems to be producing almost etherial results - in the pool, I've really been focusing on my pull, and on "climbing over the barrel" - I realize that my stroke has been too much to my sides, and I think too "S" like. I actually saw an underwater video of Ian Thorpe that really made me realize something I'm still doing wrong after all this time, so I've been focusing on my technique a lot - which means engaging some argumentative muscles, but that's half the fun. Wednesday, I decided to test myself with a fast 100 - my P.R. for a 100 is from last season, well into Ironman training, at 1:24. Wednesday, so not in race ready shape in the pool, I knocked out 1:25. That's pretty insane, and I attribute it to the improvements in form. So, have to feel good about that.

Tuesday I was on Fyr, but it was really cold (our last "really cold" day? I'll believe that when...), and all the mushy melty snowpack had, then, frozen. So riding on it was nuts - super slick and really rough. I'm really improving my bike handling skills riding in this crap - I don't know how much that will translate to the road, but none of it's bad, I suppose. Anyway, I was due for an hour, then a 20 minute run, but I cut the bike short so as to not freeze to death, and ran 30 minutes after riding 30. All's well that end's well.

This weekend I have to fit a 7 mile run in somewhere, and 2 hours on my bike. We'll see. Meantime, hope everybody has a great weekend, with the wind at your back, and may you be bonk free forever and ever, amen.