LOL. So says Meg, the sweet daughter of one of dearest friends, back in Calgary. I consider her part of my extended family, and even though I haven't seen her for a few years now, she and her mom and sister are close to my heart (ok and Julian too). I found her online on FB on Friday night, and got to chat with her, which was a nice treat. I've known her since she was born, and still think of her as an adorable 5 yr old. Now she's an amazing dancing machine, very very talented. I asked her what grade she was in now, and when she replied "grade 8 - jr high!!" all I could say was, god I feel old. Today's blog title was her quick response, god love her. I guess if a 13 yr old says anyone over the age of 25 isn't old, then that's saying something!
So this week was a TOUGH week. Lots of training hours, and the weekend especially had a couple of doozies. We headed out for our 100 miles yesterday on the Silver Comet. We started quite a bit later than originally planned, since James wasn't flying in to ATL until 9am. While I like to get these big workouts started early, I didn't mind too much since a got a lovely lie-in, which is pretty darn rare these days. Woke up at 530 anyway, but I made myself go back to sleep!! And, not a bad thing to be riding later in the day since that is what the race is gonna be. So 11:00 we set out. James was up front, and I probably shouldn't have followed him. He is fast. But honestly, I felt good, and it wasn't all that much faster than I'd done two weeks ago when I was on my own, plus I was drafting some, which I obviously wasn't doing last time. We were to do 5 hours, 100 miles, but Z had to get out early, so we turned at 2 hrs, and then the rest of us were gonna do an extra loop in the middle once we hit Floyd Rd to get in the additional 20 miles. First couple hours went by amazingly fast - thinking back to this ride on my own, I can't say the same thing. When we turned around I was feeling pretty good. I had gone flying by more than one male rider out there, and at this point I did not see any reason to not complete the full 100. By the time we hit Cooper Lake Beach on the way back my neck had really started to hurt. And it just continued to get worse, literally by the minute. The pain reached right up the back of my neck and blossomed into a glorious headache. It hurt so damn much, it became the only thing I could think about, even more than staying upright. Fortunately I did stay upright, but nothing I did made my neck feel better. I was at the point where I was riding with my head down and only looked up every 10-15 seconds - fortunately the trail was clear enough to accommodate that. I told Z that my day to hit 100 was not gonna be today. At Floyd Rd, I said no way can I do another 30 - my legs felt fine, but my neck couldn't take it. Kevin was in the same place as me. So we headed back, and I did fly back to the start. I wanted 80, so went past and did a few more. Unfortunately there is a very big hill the way I went, and at the top of it, I looked back at James (Kevin had dropped already) and just said "Screw 80. I'm done." He laughed and said sounds good to me. We got back to the car, and I did manage to get a 2+ mile run in - as James put it "gotta make sure those legs know they aren't done after the bike". It HURT, but we did get a pretty good pace.
So sad to say, we didn't get 5 hours in, nor 100 miles. And it didn't really make sense - I did more time 2 weeks ago (albeit for slightly less distance). I admit we went out too hard - and that's okay, I have to learn what that feels like...but I didn't go out that much harder, and still I felt WAY WAY worse. I am certain the biggest factor was my nutrition. I didn't drink enough in the first half. And once you get behind, there's no catching up. And I also don't think I took in enough calories, or salt. So all good things to learn, and I still have 4 months to get it right. So next weekend I will go out with a very precise nutrition plan, set some alarms to make sure I drink and eat when I need to, and see how that goes. I did still end up with my longest ride ever, so that's a silver lining. As for the neck, even Z said his neck hurt as bad or worse than mine. I guess it is just time in the saddle to get those muscles used to it. So next weekend I'll just try again.
Didn't think the run today was gonna go so well, after yesterday, but I guess that is the miracle of ice baths - it actually was very good. Almost 13 miles, with the last 30 minutes even faster than what Zimmer wanted me to hit - about an 8:00 pace for the last 4 miles. And that is on the hilly neighbourhood route. So pretty happy with that.
So tough week, but lots of good lessons learned - and that's really what this is about. Don't yet know exactly what next week looks like yet, but I'm not expecting anything less than this week. Thanks to David who has been wonderfully supportive this week, I really appreciate it.
Happy Training!
Kat
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