IMFL training weekend

I took Friday off of work to head out for a 3 day training Ironman crunch training weekend. After arriving on Friday, the group realized that the Chesapeake was crawling with jelly fish...so the 1 hr. swim was cancelled. We got some great coaching tips from Eric & Gail (our coaches) for racing IMFL. They covered topics such as, what to expect during the swim/bike/run portions of the race, how transitions work in Ironman, & nutrition (which after training is about 70% of the secret to a successful race. Lots of good info. gathered.

In the afternoon, we rode for about 45 miles at a pretty hard pace and polished it off with a 6.5 mile run. Ordered some pizza and went over therapy, stretching excercises & watched the IMFL race video from 2003. Starting to get excited!

Saturday morning we headed out for our 112 mile bike ride. Legs were tired from the workout the day before, but overall the ride went pretty well. The ride consisted of 2 - 56 mile loops on a very flat isolated piece of marsh land in Maryland. The wind wasn't too bad, but man it's boring to ride 6 hours in the aero position all by yourself! It got hot on the second loop and I ran out of water with 12 miles to go. Needless to say, I was really pooped after the ride. I think dehydration set in because I felt pretty nauseaus. Lesson: carry Tums with me.

We decided to cut the trip short and do our long run Sunday in DC which was fine by me. I needed to sleep in my own bed, and as always, Igda massaged my legs so I could regain some strength in my legs. I never realized how important massages are to endurance training and what it can do to help you recover.

Thankfully, Igda dragged me out of bed about 7:00 a.m. and we headed to the C&O canal in Georgetown. The trail I run is part of the old canal used to transport boats up the Potomac river. I run by many old manual lock and keys. It's a nice scenic run with some shade and losse dirt and gravel. My Iron Sherpa rode the next 18 miles either ahead of me or behind offering some encouragement along the way and more importantly carrying some extra H20.

After the run, we walked into Georgetown and had a great brunch at J Paul's. Not a bad way to start a Sunday.