Assault on Sugarloaf

Had a really good week of training this week. Other than getting rain and lightening'd out of my tempo run on Tuesday, the weather was hot and humid - great Kona prep! Decent long run on Thursday night, 2:20 but boy was it humid! I was soaked half way through. We planned to make the long ride on Sunday and do the Assault on Sugarloaf ride in Clermont. Nice, organized ride along the Great Floridian 112mi bike course - perfect. The weather was great but super hot, about 97degrees at the end of the ride which was also the beginning of my 6 mile brick, whew! I honestly don't remember Kona being this hot. Anyhow, we rode 4 hours on Sat, pretty easy overall. Drove over to O-town to stay at the Rennaisance at Sea World to cut the Sunday morning drive to 30 minutes. Very nice, empty resort hotel. We got to test out their cool sports bar and sushi restaurant, both good. Went to bed pretty early to get up early for Sunday ride. Tried to make this a race rehearsal type day so rode my race wheels and use same nutrition. Since I bonked on my brick last weekend, wanted to make sure I really loaded up this week. We had a nice ride but missed the good packs so ended up riding mostly by ourselves which is very race specific(what I wanted). The Dane had some troubles the last 20 miles or so and we had to cruise it in so he wouldn't be left out in the sticks. The course is pretty hard the first 35 miles or so then fairly flat (and windy) until the last 20 miles or so. I felt pretty good out there and didn't mind doing fair share of the pulling. Got the Dane back to the car ok then set out on my brick. I love running out there, nice paved path with no traffic and some gentle rolling hills. And, the heat! Had a great run, faster than race pace but went by feel not pace. Got done, packed up and drove back home to relax and watch some football and eat Thai take-out! A perfect weekend! The Dane leaves again for a couple weeks today and I'm sad. Having him along for my rides the past couple weeks has been so helpful and we had a lot of laughs yesterday especially. Only 3+ weeks left til Kona - I'm another hard/long week and great taper away from being ready. Can't wait!
Kia Kaha