Weekend Update – 14/13 Days Till SR

This weekend was a BIG WEEKEND for training.   I completed 9 hours in 2 days – a 5 hour hilly bike ride on Saturday followed by a 4 hour brick (bike/run) workout on Sunday.   Not only was this a big weekend for training, overall it has been a long and tough week and training.  Up until this point, I actually have been feeling quite good.   You can’t train that hard without it eventually catching up with you and raring it’s ugly head as fatigue, lack of motivation, or something worse like injury.   The first time this happened to me it totally caught me off guard and threw me off my game.  I didn’t know the ins and outs of training, how my body worked and responded to training, how to really recover properly… all the things that go into training!   So this time around, I knew that eventually it would come, I just didn’t know when and how bad it would be.   But I think the important thing was that I reecognized my fatigue, made necessary adjustments in order to “get it done” (as Coach Jarrod would say), and I did not give up.

SATURDAY – 5 HOUR HILLY BIKE

I met up with a local triathlon team for a group ride on Saturday morning, and it turned out to be a great ride – 75 miles with over 5,000 ft of climbing.  My nutrition on the bike was very key here, I ask other people what they are eating and drinking and am always ASTONISHED at the lack of nutrition that people carry!!!   This is what I consumed:

1.  3 bottles of water – 2 of them had one scoop of Magnak Speed Sauce electrolyte power
2.  Nugo protein bar – 200 cal / 12 sugar / 15 protein
3. Lara bar – 190 cal / 15 sugar
4. Square Organics vegan protein bar – 200 cal / 10 g protein
5. SiS gel – 22g carb

SUNDAY – 4 HOUR RIDE/RUN BRICK 

Often after a long week of training, I wake up on Sundays and really don’t want to do these bricks.  Often I procrastinate getting onto my bike, but those are the times that it is MOST important that I get them done.   Sometimes they go surprisingly well, and sometimes they go terribly and I have to run/walk or adjust to “get it done.”  Whatever I do, I still remain outside for the entire amount of time that I am supposed to be there, whether that means walking or not.  I think it’s incredibly important to finish the allotted workout, even if it doesn’t go as planned.  Otherwise, it would feel like giving up.
On this particular day, I was definitely feeling the week’s fatigue and my legs were tired from my Saturday ride.   I did the bike ride on Zwift on my trainer and in my Training Peaks notes afterward, had to write “Apologies for the astoundingly low power output!”.    But I got it done.   Moving onto the run: it was more like a jog and at 50 minutes into the 2 hours brick run, I texted my husband and said,”I am exhausted.  I don’t know how I’m going to get through the rest of this run.”   He suggested a Coke (why didn’t I think of that?!), so I said to crack that sucker and I’d be back to the house in 10 minutes.   I had him bring it outside because I knew if I went inside there was a chance I might not come back out!!     So I had some Coke, placed it out in the parking lot by the run path, and I proceeded to do 1 mile loops around my house, so that I could hit the Coke every time I came by.  And it worked!  Knowing the Coke was there was also motivation to get around that mile so I could have more!   Whatever gets it done, right?    Turns out I was actually able to put out some solid times for my last 3 x 8 min efforts at the end of the run.

NUTRITION