100 Miles

Jason told Coach B that before he left Hawaii he wanted to get at least one 100 mile ride in. Coach B also asked me if I had the same desire and I wasn't as excited about it but somehow I guess I must have agreed because it ended up on both our training plans yesterday. :) Coach B and her husband, Brendan, were planning to ride some/most of the ride with us. So, at 7 am, we all hit the road. We biked on the Ironman course, first going to the town of Hawi (pronounced Ha-vi), which is known for very strong winds. Jason and I have never made it all the way to the town, I have turned around before because I have always been afraid of the winds that feel like you are going to be blown off your bike. Today, we all made it.

Jason was very far ahead of the 3 of us since he is so fast. The 3 of us made numerous stops to get water and go to the bathroom. We passed our initial starting point and we had 42 miles to make it 100. We still hadn't seen Jason so we thought he went on to Kona. Coach B and Brendan had never biked over 60 miles and were still feeling pretty good and willing to try 100. So, we continued on. Still not seeing Jason, we thought that maybe he did the full Ironman course and likely didn't stop as much as we had. We made it to our turnaround point, which had a very brutal headwind. We stopped again for water and checked our phones and Jason had written a message an hour and 1/2 before saying he didn't feel great and went home. He still clocked 62 miles, which isn't anything to be upset with. Had we all known that, we too would have quit earlier. I guess it was probably good we didn't know or we wouldn't have made the trek. Way to go Brendan and Beaker....they were much stronger than I was today!

I feel bad that J wasn't feeling well....but he was probably the smartest one out of all of us. In ironman training, you have to listen to your body, some days it just needs a break. He'll come back stronger in a week or so once he feels good again. I actually didn't have a great ride either and probably should have quit. Despite all the nutrition I took in, my body just felt like the effort was really hard and my heart rate was really high. Just how much nutrition did I take? Yuck, 7 Gu's/Gu Roctane, roughly 80 ounces of Gatorade & G. Endurance, ~100 ounces of water, a couple electrolyte pills, and a granola bar....all in 5 hours 55 minutes of riding! I've met with a sports nutritionist to go over nutrtition while training in Alaska; however training in this heat is a completely different ball game and I would definitely need to talk to her again if we lived/raced here.

Below are pictures from last night's sunset. My seat....is still sore today. How does Lance do this?!?