This Week...

This last week was a big week for my training. I had a lot going on at work and was worried that I wasn't going to be able to fit in my scheduled workouts but I suppose that I did a decent job. Wed.-Sat. I was in Kentucky for work and as I mentioned before, I was able to ride the IMKY bike course on my way back home (Sat. morning-mid-morning). It was an AWESOME experience. I was really worried about the hills and what they were going to do to me but I handled them pretty well.

As far as weekly totals, I'm not sure how long/far I went in the pool or running because I didn't keep very good track of it (oops). However, here are the weekly "totals" for the bike followed by a quick breakdown of the ride on Sat:

Totals:
Bike: 3 rides, 08:23:29, 146.5 Miles

IMKY Course, 112.5 Miles, 18.0 MPH Avg., 41.2 MPH Max Speed, 92 Avg. Cadence, 120 Max Cadence, ride time 06:14:55

The ride: I met up with a couple of fellow BT'ers for the ride on Sat. morning (Garret, David, and Amy as well as Garret's friend Kenny). We took off at about 6:30 a.m. and started with a fairly casual 17 MPH pace. I was wondering why we were moving so "slow" at first but once we started hitting the hills I realized why you need to take it easy on the flats. The hills were non-stop, steep, and long. It was crazy but I absolutely loved it. Without overstating my own effort... I would say that I was definitely comfortable on the bike as well as the hills. The course consists of an out and back and two big loops through some really beautiful scenery. I was loving all the new sights and it kept my mind busy. The nice thing about riding a hilly course like this is that you are constantly thinking about how you are riding and you don't get lulled into a false sense of security. I really really enjoyed myself. After the ride we did a quick 30 minute brick run... well, for me it was more of a brick walk/run. I was feeling alright but the heat (it was in the 90's and very humid) was definitely getting to me and I didn't want to push it. I knew I had a long car ride ahead of me and I didn't want to either dehydrate myself or pull any muscles or anything that would make the boring car ride any longer. At any rate, I am feeling much more confident in my abilities now and am even more excited for IMKY. It's going to be a great event and I can only hope that the race goes as well as the ride did on Sat.! And for anyone who was wondering... yes, it was really really scary hitting 42MPH on the bike... fortunately, that will probably be the only time I hit that type of top speed on the course. During race day I highly doubt that I'll try going any faster than that (or near that) with a lot of other possibly squirrely bikers around me!

Alright, check back later this week!