The last hurrah!

Last week we did a final long brick before dropping of our bikes to be shipped (literally, on a boat) over to Hawaii. I ended up doing my brick on my own, due to scheduling. I just went out and back on the burke gilman for both the bike and run - 20 mile bike and a 6 mile run. My main goal was to run the entire run, with no walking - I've done plenty of 6 mile runs now on their own, but this was to prove to myself that I could do it following a long bike ride. So that I would have no excuse on race day to walk.

The last two years I'd find myself walking on and off, for no valid reason (well, I was sore and tired and hot, but those are not valid reasons during a race). So during my brick I ran the whole way! I just sorta kept running, and managed to not really think about it. It felt really great! And what felt even better was stopping at the end - I was just a bit tired...

In general I'm very good at pacing myself - which means I can generally finish what I set out to do, but not as fast as possible, and I rarely wear myself out. So it was good practice for me to do a workout that actually left me really tired! Hopefully I'll do more in the future :).

And with that, I kissed my bike good bye (for two weeks) and dropped it off for its trip to the Big Island.

We are now ready for race day, and are starting to taper our workouts. Yay :).

Bricks...

When most people think about bricks, they think of clay and mortar; the building of houses and roads etc. I was once like this, now when I hear the word brick, I think "ugh..." as the word brick is now synominous with effort, pain and moving really, really, slowly. Many of you may wonder where and why I must be carrying bricks and potentially even wonder about what I am building. Alas I am no mason, I have no major blueprint that I am working on. I am simply biking, and then running. But how is that related to bricks??? It is a simple equation: Bike + Run = ICK -> BRICK

You may laugh at this but I dare any of you to go out on a long bike ride and then attempt to move with any form of speed directly after, it's damn near impossible. Go on try it. Your legs literally feel like bricks, the lactic acid has built up to such a degree while you were biking that it is hard to move. However with practice you can teach the muscles how to recover better and adjust to the change in movement. That is currently my major focus in training. It gets me on the bike (we know how I love that) and provides focus for the last transition I will have on race day. I know that by this stage I will be tired, potentially sun burnt and the last 6 miles will seem like an eternity. I am hoping though that this training will help manage some of the pain and get me out and moving as fast as I can so that I can finish in a somewhat reasonable time.

It's hard to believe that it is only 5 weeks until we head out to Hawaii, the reality of the race is becoming ever present with the ending of every day. I can only hope that the training I have done so far, and the training that I will do in these last few weeks will be enough to take me to the finish line. Having looked at our training schedule, Cathy is definitely out to kick our butts so I'm sure I'll be fine!

If you do decide to try out a BRICK, make sure you have enough fluids and snacks with you and remember - be safe, be happy and DONATE!!