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Sunday, August 26, 2007

On and on

Another solid week in the books. Just about same amount of time as last week and still in one piece. This week, the Dane left on Wednesday for a week in Europe so I got to focus on training and sleeping (and, unfortunately, work/cleaning/laundry/grocery shopping). I did manage to catch the Dane's cold before he left and am getting through that without any serious sequelae, thank goodness. The week started Monday with record heat. When you talk about record heat in Florida, that isn't fun for training. I know it's not Arizona or desert heat but, sheesh, it's humid here also folks. The record heat and a 2:10 run were staring me in the face when I came home from work Monday evening. The Dane was smart enough to avoid that long run and amazingly hot conditions. So, I was on my own. Time to toughen up and get going. I've stolen a motto for this Ironman training season which, anyone who is a CSC cycling fan will know.....HTFU. It means Harden the F#$% up! I normally, being pretty small in stature, handle the heat very well and am typically not bothered by it other than having to slow my run pace to keep the heart rate down. Well, I got about a half mile up the road and it felt like a blow dryer blowing in my face. I knew it was going to be a testing run. I knew the heart rate monitor was going to take a beating so paid a little less attention to it (sorry Luis). I got out a little over seven miles to the turn around point and wanted to sit down and cry. I never cave mentally in long runs like this so I knew these were special conditions. I looked across the Memorial Causeway and spotted a guy and gal running along at a really solid pace and thought, hey, I can do that. I began running again after a gel and some hot, watered down Gatorade from my fuel belt and my knees nearly buckled! Oh boy, who can I call to come and pick me up? But, of course, I don't have a phone. I had to go into survivor mode and make little goals for myself, which I did. Before I knew it, I was back to the golf course, 4.5 miles from home, with a cold water faucet, refilled and motored on. I made it home, negative splitted, no less. This was one of those days that will go into the motivational vault should I need it down the road (ie, IMFL). This really kind of put me in a hole physically for the week. I got a much needed massage on Wednesday which was wonderful! I did recover enough to ride 6 1/2 hours on Saturday with a 32 min brick which was a solid workout. We will be leaving for Colorado for Labor Day weekend and I am not upset that I might miss a workout or two! I think I need it for the final push into IMFL. I will be so happy to run in 70-something degree weather! Even if it is at altitude! So, HTFU and less than 10 weeks to IMFL! Cheers.

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