5 Days to Go!!!

Which means I'm in full on taper mode.

This weekend was GREAT! I can really see all my hard work starting to pay off and all the work I've been doing with my nutrition.

This weekend:

On Saturday, I left from my house and did the Old La Honda Loop (46 miles -- 3,800' of climbing) in 3 hours. It felt great! I did Old La Honda (3.4 mile climb, steady 7% grade) at 7 MPH and kept my heartrate below 140. That's good! Most people are huffing and puffing to get up that thing. I took it nice and steady and didn't even have to stop at the top. I took the immediate left on Skyline and kept on climbing. The other nice highlight was looking down while I was on the flats. I was doing 20 mph and my heart rate was 123 (that's zone 1). Nice! I felt like I was ready to go qualify for Hawaii...and then I reminded myself that I'd have to do the Ironman under 10:50 (that's 10 hours and 50 minutes for 140 miles) and decided that I was crazy ;-)

Sunday, Shaun and I got up and drove to San Francisco to meet my training group. We did a 20 minute swim in the bay (water temp 54*-I did 1/2 mile in 11 minutes) and then we ran 7 miles up the coast towards the Golden Gate Bridge. In fact, we turned around right at the bridge. It was a low heart rate run but I was supposed to do 10 minutes of race pace (Read:really fast) running. One of my 1 minute intervals I got up to a 6:18 minute mile pace-Nice!

After the run, we had brunch with my training group and then drove home. I took my bike in to get it serviced and to get new tires. The guy who sold it to me (who is a total sweetheart) did a diagnostic of my bike. He felt my rims and said "My god, you've put 6-7,000 miles on this bike!" He checked everything else and all I need right now are new tires. I will need a new chain before the Ironman and possibly a new wheel hub...but we'll see.

I then went on and did productive functioning adult things (like grocery shop, cook, etc-ya know the things I have to do, but can't find the time to do) and Shaun took a 3 hour nap.

I was having issues falling asleep last night and it didn't happen until 10:30 and I still woke up at 4:45 ready to go.

Yes, yes, I am tapering.