Mother's Day Brick... (and the Speedo Debut!)

Above Left: Pre-Brick

Above Right: Hour 1

Above Left: Hour 3

Above Right: Out of the Saddle and Climbing!

Above: Post-Run, Hour 4.  Happy Mother's Day!

Hope all the Mom's out there had a great Mother's Day today!  Today's workout was a tough one but it was totally worth it.  Not only did I do my longest brick to date but I was also able to work on my nutrition (although today will probably fall into that "what not to do" category).  Also, the speedo made it's debut.  Ladies and small children... please avert your eyes!

To begin, wearing the speedo was a little odd to say the least.  Truth be told, I've never worn a Speedo prior to today's brick.  It felt strange at first but I had to get over that pretty quick as I kept telling myself that I'll be rocking the speedo only tri in less than a month.  I'm thinking maybe I'll have to tan before that... look at how crazy white my legs are!  Anyway, once I was sure that everything is in place, and wasn't leaving, I hopped on the bike and got to work.

Because my speed sensor is attached to my front fork I wasn't able to get a speed or mileage readout for this workout.  That was a little disappointing since this was my longest ride of the year and I would have liked to have known where I was at distance-wise but I guess it was on the trainer so it would have all been relative anyway.  Anyway, the metric I used while riding was my cadence.  My goal was to stay above 90 RPM for the entire ride and I was able to do so with a couple of brief exceptions.  The ride itself wasn't very hard but the fact that I was doing it on the trainer made it pretty boring after the first hour.  To keep myself motivated I threw on the Ironman 25th Anniversary DVD.  Riding while watching these DVD's is such a great experience... it's like you are constantly reminded of why you're on the bike.  Once that finished I threw on some music and rode, rode, rode some more.  Gwen was around to keep me company for the last 45 minutes or so and it made things a lot easier!

Following the ride Gwen and I went out for a 30 minute run.  I was really, really surprised at how good my legs felt.  When we started out it felt as though I hadn't been riding at all!  We made our way over to the local middle school track and ran a couple of miles each.  I was feeling really good and today has been a huge confidence booster for me!

The one thing that I learned today was that although my aspirations may be to be an Ironman... my stomach will probably never be "iron."  Today I decided to try using Accelerade instead of my normal 50/50 Gatorade/Water mix.  Instead, I mixed in one scoop of Accelerade per 12 oz. of water.  My plan was to drink one bottle of water for each hour of the workout.  In addition to this I took one packet of GU each hour.  The first 2 1/2 hours went great but after that I started to have some major GI issues.  I'm guessing that what I did wrong was to consume the Accelerade too fast.  The first 2 hours I spread it throughout... However, the last 2 hours I basically slammed it.  There was basically an immediate effect.  Each time after that anytime I took a drink or used GU I felt like I had to run to the bathroom.  It definitely made for an interesting end to the training.  In the end, I was able to control everything but I know for the future that I really need to spread out the Accelerade.  Surprisingly, I didn't mind the flavor of it too much... which I figured that I would but it works great!  I definitely feel like I noticed the "power" that I get when I use nutrition in the right way!

Alright... this week should shape up to be a good one.  I'm really excited as I think that Team Uniforms for Jade/Whisper Cycles will be in at the end of this week and I will be able to unveil the new speedo (the special Whisper Cycles speedo) in conjunction with the new uniforms!  There will also be plain old tri shorts which I plan on wearing more than the Speedo... so friends/family/acquaintances don't worry!  Don't run and don't be scered.  And, for the record... I would like to say that Nick Gerrits totally hit the nail on the head when he made fun of me for starting a blog.  He called it out that eventually there would be a day when suddenly pictures of me in a speedo came online... unfortunately, he is so right!

Alright all... hope the weekend was good.  

Later on!

(oh... and two more things... or, three more things: 

1.  if you haven't already... go out and buy Ben Folds Presents: University a Capella!

2.  why the heck isn't there coverage of the Giro d'Italia in the States?

3  it's Mother's Day for goodness sake... make your Momma proud and buy a Whisper!  www.whispercycles.com