Mega Tough Day 2

BIKE: 41 miles in 3:20! Feet climbed:
SWIM: about .4 miles in about 30 mins
RUN: about .4 miles in...oh...who knows

My goals for this weekend: forget about work. forget about the club. forget about some other underlying personal issues. relax. train.

We woke up in Branson to more heat and lots of hills! We spent the first few minutes of the ride tooling around the Village the condo was in. I had Frea, not really a climbing bike, but I still had the climbing cassette from IMWI. So the Filly could climb, just not always easy.

The end goal was to get on the IM Branson course, a highway just outside the Village. By this point, 20 mins and 4 miles had passed. I wasn't feeling too hyped about the ride just yet. I was tired, a bit down, and already burning up from the heat. EK found the hwy on the other side of some trees, so we 'bikewacked' (is that a word?) across cyclocross style and found the hwy: 2 lanes each way, divided highway, big ass shoulder! Hey ho, let's go!

Let's go, alright. UP hill. A big hill. A big sloooooowwwww climb that required bottoming out the gears to the Granny setting. Oooof. The day had heated up and there didn't seem to be much wind. So all sweat just dripped on me. Over the next 15 miles, I was very aware of just how much water I'd lose in the climbing sections.

But with every uphill, there's a downhill. And oh DAMN the downhills! Big, long, slow downhills. I was thankful for the shoulder and great road conditions. A pothole or bump at 40mph could be dangerous.

We'd descend at 25-35+ mph then climb at 5-10mph. The difference was striking. A rush, then a hill. A rush, then a hill. HOT hills. It didn't take long before the iced water in the bottles was hot on the tongue. Luckily Infinit still tastes good at that temp. Nuun'd water...not so much. Frea was fully loaded with all 4 bottles, and after the 1st loop (~20 miles) I'd emptied 1.5 of them. Not enough!

EK and I took on the 2nd loop. The first time around my confidence on the descents was low. A crosswind buffeted the bikes and caught the aerotubes a lot. This time I was more ready for it and more confident. The 2nd loop wasn't as bad as the first. We found some warm water from fountain at the turnaround and headed home. I didn't mention this yet, but there was also a stiff headwind on the return trips. Funny to be looking down a really big hill yet be only moving at 20mph. It took 3.4 hours for 41 miles!! I was pretty heatsick by the last 10 mins but recovered OK. I think the heatsick was in my head. I was craving ice water!!

Later EK LC and I swam in Table Rock, practicing OWS drills, drafting, swim starts, and other goofy things. Although we didn't swim much, this was a great confidence builder for me. Pigman will be my first long course race in OWS without a wetsuit. A 400m swim in a sprint not being counted.

Then even later the 3 of us went for a run, but by this time my tummy was upset and lunch wasn't settling well. We shared running drills then I cut short for home.

I stayed hydrated and fed (maybe overfed) and slept OK that night, even with the thunderstorms!