Posted on Dec 08, 2012 under Pre/Post Race | Comments are off
I can’t believe it’s been a week since the 50k, it seems like so long ago and just yesterday all at the same time (amazing how the mind distorts time perception).
When I signed up for the 50k, I contemplated the 50mile option, but since it was a trail run with a large amount of climbing and descending, I pulled back and just signed up for the 50k. When race morning came, I was VERY happy that I did.
The week leading up to the race, the SF bay area was wet. I mean, crazy wet! Like flash flood wet. It was so wet, in fact, that on the Friday night before the Saturday 50k race, the course was altered due to anticipated severe weather conditions!
Another reason I was happy to have opted for the 50k route: the 50 mile route started at 5am!!! We, the 50k runners started at a much more civilized 7am.
Arriving at the site, it was dark, windy, and raining. There was little shelter to be had and many of us hid in the gear drop trucks waiting for the minutes to tick by. People, myself included, were a little dubious about why exactly we were doing this, but we were all joking around and I don’t think anyone who was there was going to be the 1st to scrub the run before it started. Even with reports of 50 mile runners being evac’d because of injuries sustained while running the flooded trail in the dark, we were a resolute bunch (if perhaps a little insane 🙂 )
At 7 we were off. Initially the trail wasn’t too bad, we were on a big climb, and while it was a little mushy in places and there were a few trail-edge to trail-edge puddles, it wasn’t bad. It was raining, cool, and hazy to foggy. At times the visibility was so poor that I couldn’t see other runners 100 feet ahead of me on the trail. Of course, wearing glasses wasn’t a blessing in this weather and it got me thinking about laser surgery again.
As the run progressed, the rain fell and many feet churned up the trail. In places, the trail was in really really poor shape. I was joking around with people saying it was like trying to run in partly set chocolate pudding, or like trying to run up and down 20% grades in Super Slider Snow Skates. Remember these?
There were people bombing down these hills without seemingly any regard for personal safety. If it hadn’t been for the frequency of the rocks jutting out of the mud, I may have joined them, but visions of face planting into a boulder had me slowing and picking my steps more carefully. Down on these slippery slopes was challenging, up was… well ridiculous! More than once I nearly lost shoes in the mud. A few times, while trying to clamber up one of these Tough Mudder hills I lost traction and slid backwards no less than 20 feet. Fortunately I was laughing or I think I’d have been crying.
At around my 40k mark the rain broke and the sun tried to come out. It was very welcome and psychologically well timed.
Soon I was running into the finish line, I’d done it, my gps read 48k but given the last minute course reroute I figured it was probably just the best they could do.
But.
When I got to the finish line there was an aide station and people saying if this was your 1st time here to go back out for another lap. 48k? Another lap? “Lap of WHAT?” I thought. But perhaps they’d figured some way to add 2k to get to the 50k. Crushing to be within 10′ of the finish line and sent back out, but so be it. My watch was at about 6:15 and I went back out.
I ran… and ran… and eventually made my way to the previous aide station. My gps now at nearly 50k I ask the aide station where I’m supposed to turn around… They explain that there was an error and I should have finished. I laughed. They were very apologetic but I didn’t care. I was having fun and after 50k what was another 2! So I ran back in.
Approaching the finish line for the 2nd time, I high-5’d all the same people I had maybe 10 minutes prior. We were all laughing. It was just silly. I think my “official” finish time is something like 6:30, but I like my 6:15 1st finish better 🙂
The Fnish-Line festival was pretty damped by the weather. It was very small, and very soggy. That said, the post-race meal was better than almost any other race I’ve ever attended! There was (omg) salad(!!!), chicken(!!!) and (not that I had any) pasta with sauce, and, if I recall, soup. There was also finisher beer to be had (again not for me, but it was there!)
One thing that surprised me was how psychologically challenging the weather made the day: I knew going into it that it’d be physically challenging and I was prepared for that, but the weather, cold, wet, mud and ground conditions really challenged my mental resolve. Physically, the day was probably a little easier because of all the forced walking, but mentally I had to dig deep and fight out of a dark place that, to date, I’d never encountered before.
It was definitely a fun day and a good challenge for my first Ultra. Yea… it won’t be my last 🙂 Too much fun 🙂
Plan for today was a big brick. Here’s the bike before the ride.
My legs were pretty smoked from hill repeats yesterday and my power file shows it. Saddle sores starting to be a bit of an issue, which sucks, but my tea-tree oil will hopefully help remediate that.
My back started to cramp up in the last 45 minutes and so I scrapped the run and did water support for the folks who did the 21k run. I may still run tonight but my back is still kinda angry, so gonna play it by ear.
My fueling today was PickyBars and Gu Rocktane Drink, used some EFS PreRace to help push through the fatigue and ended the ride with a First Endurance Ultragen.
I was fortunate to have borrowed a Recovery Pump system for Ironman Mont Tremblant recovery. I wasn’t sure what to expect or if it’d make any real difference. I wore the legs for 2 hrs after the race and for 30 minutes the next morning, and while I saw people in the village hobbling around, my legs felt really good. Was this the Recovery Pump, my pacing, my physiology or some other factor.
Ian and I decided to put them to a test. Here was the plan:
On 2 subsequent Saturdays (Friday is a rest day), I’d do the following workout at 8am and again at noon. Before the 8am I’d have my normal breakfast (yogurt, bran buds and a banana), after the 1st workout I’d have a First Endurance Ultragen. During each test I would drink 1 bottle of water with First Endurance EFS Drink.
The workout was controlled as a programmed .ERG workout with the computrainer, as follows:
Warmup: 120w-200w progressive increase over 10:00
quick computrainer calibration
Long Intervals: (seated) 3x 10:00 @ 30w over FTP with a 3:00 easy spin between
10:00 easy (during which I exited the power workout and started spinscan to be able to set a fixed grade)
Sprint Intervals: 6x 0:10 seated sprint with 0:50 recovery
Cooldown: 5:00
On the 1st week, we did the control. No specific recovery between the trials, just nutrition, tv, web surfing, etc. The 2nd week I used the recoverypump legs for 45 minutes after the 1st workout.
The Results
The Control
Trial 1
Trial 2
Delta
Long Intervals
7 micro-rests
13 micro-rests
Performance drop by ~40%
Sprint Intervals
Max 626w
Max 603 (but most ~590w)
Performance drop by 5%
(micro-rest: just can’t keep the pedals going any longer, 3-5 sec rest and go again)
The Recovery Pump Test
Trial 1
Trial 2
Delta
Long Intervals
12 micro-rests
10 micro-rests
Performance improvement by ~17%
Sprint Intervals
Max 675w
Max 736
Performance increase by 9%
To me these results are pretty compelling and corroborate my gut feel that the Recovery Pump system was making a difference. I was actually surprised to see a performance INCREASE when using the system. It wasn’t just that my performance didn’t decrease as much, but the invigorated legs were able to do MORE than just “morning fresh”.
Ongoing Testing
Obviously, I’m not done with my investigation of the power of the Recovery Pump system. I’ve used it before track workouts to pump up my legs before the speedwork and after to refresh them. I have to say, I’m pretty convinced that this system lives up to every claim on the Recovery Pump website.
June 8-10th I organized an Ironman Mont Tremblant Training camp. It was a “ruffing it” style event where people were generally on their own for meals and accommodations. The majority of us were camping at Camping Boreal, but some, in light of the terrible weather when we arrived on Friday, chose to find a nearby motel and rough-it a little less 🙂
Today I had to do a 3.5hr ride and brick run, the weather in Toronto was finally cooperative and I decided to take my new Storck Aero2is (aka Gertie) out for her maiden voyage, and I have to say that I’m very happy I did so, on a number of fronts. The boys at Blacksmith Cycle did a great job putting her together and for her maiden voyage there were very few glitches.
Here’s a pic of me and Gertie:
Was a great day for a ride today, temp in the low teens (Celsius), light winds, full sun: hard to beat especially in April in Toronto! I was a little concerned about being cold (especially my feet) but was pretty good with a jersey, shorts, arm and leg warmers and gloves.
For fuel today I relied exclusively on First EnduranceEFS Liquid Shot. Liquid shot is amazing stuff: 400cal’s per flask, comes in bulk quantities, has no gelling agents (which are sometimes causes of GI distress and are frequently diuretics), and has very high electrolyte levels (over 1.5g) and amino acids (over 1g). If you haven’t tried Liquid Shot, you’ve done yourself a disservice. Also, First Endurance just released a new flavour of Liquid Shot: Kona Mocha. This is probably the best flavour going (followed, in my opinion, by vanilla). You have to try it!
Loving the DI2
Before I talk about any negatives, I have to rave about DI2. I’ll start by warning you: Don’t test ride a bike with DI2 unless you’re planning to upgrade to DI2! Seriously! On TT bikes and tri-bikes having the shifters on both the aerobar ends and on the brake levers, is ridiculously cool! And cool in ways that I didn’t expect!
I expected to love the extra shifters on the brakes when I had to stop or pull up a hill or suddenly needed to be in a lower gear than I had been, and sure, they’re good for that. But, they’re also GREAT when you’re up out of the saddle, cranking hard, and want to be in a higher gear (passing, climbing, getting cadence back up, etc.). Being able to, with the touch of a finger, be in the gear you want to be in is FREAKING AMAZING!
Historically, I didn’t go to indexed shifting because I found the indexing difficult to tune (especially if you were changing wheels or cassettes frequently) and, psychologically, I found the indexing somehow more difficult to operate (don’t ask – I know it doesn’t make sense). So I always turned off indexed shifting and used friction mode. I found that in friction mode I shifted more often and maintained consistent power output better. Well, move over friction, DI2 has clobbered that. I now find myself shifting like a man possessed: “oh this is a little harder” <shift down>.. “this is too easy” <shift up>. Power output: super consistent! Love! LOVE! LOVE!!!
Teething Pains and Torhans Woes
Generally, Gertie is amazing! So much fun to ride: stiff, fast and responsive. There is, in fact, nothing about this bike I don’t like! But I did have a few minor teething pains today. The two worth mentioning were the seat height adjustment and my frustrations with the Torhans 30 hydration system.
1st seat height: my 2nd biggest source of frustration on the ride. 6 times I had to stop and reset my seat height as the adjuster had loosened off from road vibrations. I was a little nervous about over-tightening the adjuster as I didn’t want to stress the frame (I’m going to see if there are torque guidelines for the adjuster, but haven’t yet). The adjuster is hard to describe, but it’s a wedge that sits in front of the seat post and is pulled into a friction position with a screw. Anyhow.. I’ve added a little friction tape to the assembly and think that this may solve the problem as there was really very little that the assembly could get purchase on to stop it from vibrating loose. Definitely happy that I found (and hopefully fixed) this before NOLA in 2 weeks. Of course, all the riding on the trainer didn’t show this because there were no road bumps to shake it loose. I’ll have to get out on the road a few more times before I leave for NOLA to make sure this is sorted.
My biggest frustration on the ride though, has to be the Torhans 30 hydration system. OH! MY! GAWD! I HATE this thing. In Panama I used it for the 1st time and was sprayed with the contents repeatedly. I just figured I was doing something wrong, so I hit the net and did some research. I found some people who said they only filled similar systems 1/2 full to get around spray issues. I found some other people who said to cut a little triangle out of the inner spray-back flap so that filling put more liquid into the bottle and less in the gap between the 2 covers. Well, I tried both of these approaches today and I still ended up wearing a LOT of the contents of the bottle. I got so frustrated with it, that at one point I was really tempted to yank it off the bike and drop it at the side of the road! Suffice it to say, it’s going (want it? Make me an offer!) I’ll go back to a water bottle between the bars or better yet a Speedfil A2.
Baby Pictures
As promised here are some baby pictures of Gertie.
Here she is as ridden today, don’t really love the HED Tri-Spoke but it’s an ok training wheel:
Love the Adamo Podium saddle, looks like one of the surprise potholes I hit dropped the nose a bit – it started the ride level!
Want a ride like this? I bet you do! Talk to the folks at Blacksmith Cycle, they’ll hook you up. Storck isn’t a well known brand in North America (yet), but based on the performance of this beauty, that’s soon going to change! Wow! Just WOW!
I ran a bit of the course into the finish line, where I got a cheer from some folks who were there hanging out.
Got my bike racked
Scoped out the swim exit
and entry to transition
(see it? WAAAAY down there?)
And generally tried to take it easy and stay off my feet.
Have all my nutrition mixed or bagged for the morning, my Garmin 910 is set to alert me at the race-plan thresholds that Ian and I have set. My kit is all packed, my clothes for morning are laid out and I’m good to go.
Right now, it’s 7:30, I’m just finishing up dinner and this blog post then to bed. Have 3 alarms set 3:15, :30, and :45 (just in case). Shuttles start at 4am. So I’m going to cut this short.
Thanks to everyone who’s wished me well for tomorrow. It’s going to be a great day and I’m gonna have fun no matter what. Think tailwinds and other fast thoughts for me. I’ll post a race review, probably on Monday.
Special thanks to:
Kim for dealing with all my training, dietary and gadget requirements over the lead up to this and other events.
Ian for his great council and guidance getting here
My folks and especially my Dad, who’s strength and determination getting through his bout with GBS is an inspiration to me
First Endurance for their nutrition support
Blacksmith Cycles for their sponsorship and the loan of these super-slick Madfibre wheels
and, Richard and Jamuna Burry for being such awesome, and generous hosts here in Panama
Shin is better than it has been, but not 100%. I have advil and alieve and have mentally prepared myself to feel it. Sunday night it’ll be angry with me, but it’ll get rest soon. 🙂
Can’t guarantee much except that I’ll leave everything on the course and have fun doing it.
Today I’m enjoying every sip of every coffee, every slurp of Yerba Mate peppermint tea, every nibble of 99% cocoa solids chocolate. I may even have a caffeinated tea at some point and if I do I’ll make sure to slowly savour and enjoy it as well. Today is my last caffeinated day until the morning of IMPanama.
I don’t drink a LOT of coffee (typically a cup or maybe 2 a day). In my training, especially before intense workouts, I may use an ergogenic aide like First Endurance’s Pre-Race to help push hard and reach conditioning levels at the top ends of my current abilities. But, for the next 2 weeks, I’m doing a reset. If my body has built any tolerance to these substances, the next 14 days will be enough to undo some of that habituation and allow their full effects to be felt and capitalized upon.
Does caffeine make a difference? Well, based on a number of scientific studies, research papers, and other scholarly works there’s no clear answer. In my laboratory of 1 (i.e. me) I know that coffee has a laxative effect (that I’ll certainly miss over the next 2 weeks), but that it also has a performance enhancing one. First Endurance Pre-Race has been clinically shown to improve performance and one of it’s ingredients is also caffeine. We also know that many of these ergogenic substances, over time, work to deplete your adrenals. Giving my adrenal system time to recharge has got to be a plus.
So, I look at it this way:
since my experiments have shown it beneficial for me (even if only psychosomatically), and
given that I’ll be on vacation from work starting Tuesday (i.e. not having to wake at 5am to workout before work, being able to nap when I’m tired, etc), and
given that doing a detox every now and then is generally a “good thing”.
My 2 week caffeine fast can do nothing but good.
So, over the next few weeks, while you’re enjoying your morning brew, have a sip for me! I’ll be drinking peppermint or some other herbal tea, Caflib, coconut water, almond milk or juice. I’ll join you in a “Cup o’ Joe”on the 12th!
I drove up to Gravenhurst on Friday 1/2 planning to camp in the back of the pickup, 1/2 hoping to find a motel on the cheap to rest my head. I got lucky! Most of Gravenhurst was sold out, but I managed to find a closet-of-a-room in a small motel across from the Howard Johnson’s for cheap. This room was *small*. With me, my gear, and bike in the room I had to walk on the bed to get to the door. Small! But… there were no bugs, no dew falling in the room and the bed was comfortable and clean, so I won 🙂
After checking in and unloading, I pre-drove the bike route. Not as good as pre-riding, but I wanted to save my legs for Saturday and was still feeling my century from last weekend a bit. Driving the course a few things struck me: the course was beautiful(!) so much nature and scenery, but the road was not terrific; however, the MSC staff had already been down the course (probably multiple times) with road marking paint, highlighting potholes and other road hazards (Great work folks!!! Thank you!), the course was nice and roller-y and generally felt more downhill on the way out and more uphill on the return path and that a great deal of the course was heavily treed (no wind, shade, but possibly also hot and humid).
I decided that based on the sheltered nature of the course, unless I woke up to a gale, I’d run my tri-spoke front and disc rear. My disc had a pretty aggressive cassette on it (11-21), so I quickly switched it over to a more hill-centric cassette (11-25), gave the bike a quick once over. Put some fuel down my hatch and went to bed.
Race Prep
Woke Saturday morning at 1am and ate a banana and went back to sleep til 5 when my alarm went off. Ate some blueberries and yogurt, packed the car and headed off to the race site. In the morning I was sipping a blend of hornet-juice, carbo-pro, EFS drink and EFS pre-race. I missed my morning coffee ritual and I believe that set me up for some problems later in the day (more on that below).
Pre-race checkin was flawless as I’ve come to expect with the MSC events. Quick and clean. Got my bike racked, my transition area setup, last minute checks done and did some stretching and some pre-race meditation.
Race Start and the Swim
The race start for Gravenhurst is modeled after the Escape from Alcatraz race, where the start is offshore and you’re ferried there by one of the steamships at the Gravenhurst wharf. I used the time on the steamer to continue my pre-race meditation, to focus on my heart-rate and breathing and to try to stay on the of the pre-race adrenalin rush.
Arriving at the start in the steamer we all exited the boat and spent a few minutes in the water at the start line. I positioned myself middle-middle and waited for the ship’s horn as our start. HOOOT! And we’re away. My meditation and focus pre-race seemed to be working well. I kept telling myself: “swim your race”, “don’t cross over”, “breathe”, “relax”. It was great! I didn’t get my panic attack 30 seconds into the race from starting out waaay to fast as I have in the 2 previous races. Clearly, I’m starting to get a bit of control over my swim-race psychology.
Now, in hindsight my swim time wasn’t stellar 2:18/100m (according to my watch, which I started just as I started swimming and finished a few seconds out of the water my pace was 2:10/100, which I’m happier about) is pretty slow and I can do/have done better, but I was so focused on pacing and holding myself back that I didn’t open the throttle too much at all. So the pendulum swung the other way a bit too far – rather than having a panic attack because I was going hell-for-leather, I was sitting back in a comfy chair drinking a mint-julep. Next time, I’ll strike for a more center-line chord 🙂
T1 and Bike
Coming out of the swim, and into T1 all was flowing well. My T1 time was good, tho I need to remember some PAM or chub-rub or something to try to help get my wetsuit off a little faster. Out onto the bike course all was pretty good. I mount my bike, shoes already in pedals, elastic bands holding the shoes in the right places and off I go. All is pretty good until…
I went to put my left foot into my shoe to discover that I hadn’t opened the velcro closure, so I’m riding up a slow grade, one foot in a shoe, the other trying to figure out it’s way into a closed shoe. Then trying, nearly in vain, to open the velcro. Then opening it so far that I pull the strap right out of the closing loop. Eventually, I give up and stop. Fix the shoe, get my foot in it and pedal away, muttering not-repeatable obscenities at myself. It kinda reminded me of Macca here:
Other than blowing probably 2-3 minutes wrestling with my shoes (yes I won’t be doing that again), the bike course went really well. My cassette choice from the day before was good, the bike was performing well, I was hydrating and fueling ok (more on this later). Generally felt really good on the bike, though I wasn’t passing nearly as many people as in previous races, so this told me that the field here was definitely stronger (perhaps not surprising given the number of Canadian national team members in attendance and the number of elites 🙂 ).
At 25km into the 40k bike I pulled the pin on an EFS Holy Handgrenade to help pump me up for the climb back into T2 and for the following 10k run. Damn that’s good stuff. Tastes like hell, but does it work. Definitely encourages hydration!
My pre-drive was right – the trip back definitely felt like more climbing than descending. Still no crazy hills, nothing that had me needing to get out of the saddle and throw the bike around to get up. Just gear down and keep spinning. Did have a few 650+watt spikes, but not many and nothing sustained to burn out the legs.
T2 and Run
My Bike through T2 was pretty clean. T2 transition for me is usually pretty simple. If I were comfortable running without socks I could probably shave another 30 seconds, but don’t know that I want to risk my feet for 30 seconds… Off into the run my legs were ledden.. need to do more brick workouts to get these puppies working better after spinning. About 1k into the run I developed the desire super urgent need to pee. I tried to ignore it, but there was no ignoring it. Off to the side of the road… aaaaaah… ok there goes 45 seconds… maybe a minute… starting running again… GI cramping. Hrm.. is this a nutrition problem or a coffee ritual problem…” just keep running, the cramp will go away”, I tell myself. Every water station I took on water and doused myself. It was hot! Really hot! Cramps turned into runners gas. I started feeling bad for anyone behind me, and hoping that the gas remained gas and didn’t try to become solid (it stayed gas, fortunately, but the cramps didn’t go). Picked up the pace in the last couple of km, more in the last km, sprinting in the last 300m.
Post Race
Immediately post race, while superheated and crampy, I found the milk booth where they were giving out free chocolate milk. I slammed one back and grabbed another to sip. Almost immediately finishing the 2nd container it hit my crampy, super-hot stomach and I felt like I was going to loose it. I felt faint, nauseous and like I was going to vomit. I dunked my hat and a towel in some icewater and put them on to try to cool off. Stuck my hands in some icewater, found some shade and sat. And sat… and sat… Eventually after over an hour, I start to regain normalcy. Still crampy but less so.
After the race I had to do another hour training run. I grabbed my fuelbelt and some water and headed out. Damn it was HOT… it was probably 1pm at this point and the sun was just beating you down. Even with my litre of water in the fuelbelt I was dehydrated. On the way out I stopped at a garden centre and had a shower in their hose, then stopped at a home hardware to use their washroom and cooled off in their sink. On the way back also stopped at the garden centre for another quick cool off.
Nutrition Review
My pre-race sipping drink seemed to set me up well for the swim. 250 calories and a bunch of “go go” juice.
On the bike I had the EFS Handgrenade, water in the speedfil, and 2 waterbottles with hornet-juice, efs and 2 scoops of carbo-pro (360cal/bottle), also had a flask of hammergel espresso. I only consumed the handgrenade, 60% of 1 of the waterbottles of fuel, a small sip of the hammergel (not even 1 serving), and not nearly enough water.
On the run, I had a flask of EFS liquid shot that I had a couple of small sips of and was only taking water from the aide stations
What would I change? On the bike, I was carrying far too much fuel for the duration of the race, and not consuming enough of all that I did carry. Why take the weight if you’re not going to consume it?! I also carried bike tools, co2 and a spare tubular, but had no intention of changing a flat at the side of the road, so again, carrying extra weight for no good reason.
The big problem for me was the cramping during the run. At 4pm, when my body finally had some coffee in it and it went to the washroom, the cramping finally stopped… I had the feeling that this was probably the root cause for most of the day, but couldn’t convince my body that it was time to go anytime prior to 4 after the double espresso I had before my drive home kicked in. Why didn’t I have coffee in the morning? I dunno.. it’s not like there wasn’t a 24h Tim’s a block from my motel?
Lesson: don’t change anything on race day! It doesn’t seem to matter how many times you drill it in to your head, something innocuous always seems to “get you” 🙂
In Closing
Many thanks to the MSC staff and volunteers and all the contracted personel (police, ambulance, photographers, time takers, massage, Hero Burgers, etc.) for making the day so thoroughly enjoyable! You all ROCK!
Last Saturday I took the day, drove to Huntsville and pre-rode the bike portion of the Ironman Muskoka course.
The bike route is a lollipop shaped course leaving from and returning to Deerhurst Resort and encircling Lake of Bays. Let me cut to the chase and say this route is beautiful. A lot of awesome scenery, great roads and a lot of shade. There are no road hazards that I noted on the course save for 2 things, both of which will be addressed by or on race day:
Currently there’s construction on the stretch of South Portage Rd between North Portage Rd and Dwight Beach Rd. I’d spoken with the race director before hand and was told that there was some construction on the route but that it’d be done long before September. He characterized it as loose gravel, but that was pretty minimal even last Saturday. Certainly rideable.
A few places on the course the road turns abruptly, but appears to go straight. I hit these sections going way to fast and was emergency stopping to slow enough to get around the corners. I’m told that these will be well signed and also have plenty of volunteers directing people.
This route is for people who love hills, slow grades, steep grades, sharp corners then steep climbs, fast descents into corners or back up the next hill. This route has them all. Make sure your deraileurs are working well and that you’re planning to shift frequently! Definitely avoid the temptation to just push up these hills in high gears. Be especially cautious to save your legs during the stretch from Dwight to Baysville. These hills aren’t as challenging and you may be tempted to “chop up the candle and burn the bits”, but don’t!
The last 20k of this course is tough! Your legs are tired, your butt is tired, and some of the most aggressive climbing on the entire course is in the last 20k. Make sure you’re hydrated, fueled, caffeinated, and have energy in the bank when you hit this section. There are bottle exchanges at Dorset and Baysville, take advantage of them! It’s going to be hot, and you’re going to be sweating through a lot of fluids. And of course, don’t forget, you have a 21k run waiting for you on the other side of the bike. I know part of my strategy for getting through this section and into the run 🙂
Looking forward to heading back up in August to ride it again and of course for September 🙂
Posted on Jun 11, 2015 under etc... | Comments are off
Fair and balanced article:
“It’s crucial that anyone who signs up to an event gets a health check first and builds a slow and steady training program, rather than jumping straight into a marathon, for example, with only a month’s training.”
Just makes sense to me, but I know people tend to underestimate the demands of endurance sport.
Scientists from Monash University says that bacteria can leak from the gut to the bloodstream.
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