Week 6

Hello:

Well I dont know what happened to my last blog, probably floating somewhere in the WWW.  Last week was pretty tough.    Over the last  7 days I spent 10.5 hours on the bike, 2.75 hours swimming, and 5.0 hours running. 

I have had a difficult week in regards to my equipment.  When  I put on my new wetsuit for my first open water swim this year, I found it had many factory flaws.  I hope they will take it back or exchange me for another one. The water was so cold, I had a very difficult time keeping my face in the water.  The lake was about 50 degrees.  It was very windy and took forever for me to come back into the wind.  

I did a Century ride outside of spokane.  My first 100 mile bike ride in about 25 years.  Started out fine, then at mile marker 45 my front tube blew.  My replacement tube would only hold enough air for about 7-10 miles at a time, and then would need air.  Eventually it too died.  A fellow rider gave me his spare tube...it was bigger than my tire, but only at mile 65 I was willing to try anything.   This tube exploded at mile 79 going down a hill.  I was really done by now and just wanted a ride back to the potatoe feed finish.  A volunteer bike service truck showed up after 30 mins and there was no room for me to get a free ride.  But with a smile, the techician said he could fix my bike just in time for the rain to start pouring.  He was right.  I spent the next 21 miles riding in a down pour!   What made this worse was the rain was washing away the chalk markings on the road, and I accidently passed the exit to the finish line and went 5 miles past the end.  I was supposed to jog 3 miles after this....yea but that was not going to happen.

This week I need to workout 18-19 hours.  At least one 100 mile ride and all other workouts are 2 or 3 hours along.   I have 4 more weeks of hard workouts, followed by a gradual 2 week taper down to the race.   This is the most difficult part of my training so far...... starting feel a little burned out. 

More next week.