Du-Run-Run

Just a boring training post. No Charge Pond for me Saturday, as it was snowing and cold out. Not sure if they had it or not. By the afternoon things were looking better and I got a few hours in on the fender bike with some solid strength-endurance stuff over in the Sharon hills. Didn't get done until 7 pm. Sunday I fought off lingering last-minute temptations to run New Bedford. I knew I wasn't mentally into it well enough to push through a race like that with any meaningful fervor, so I let my cheap gene take over and stayed home. Instead I decided to jump the gun on the Long Island boys and stage a mock duathlon on my own.

In 2006 I did a couple of du's, including the Pinnacle Challenge Double. For 2007 my running game was stepped up, and I'd planned on several, but only ended up completing one. In neither year did I do any specific preparations for these, pretty much winging it. This year, I have done a few bricks, both run-bike (usually on the trainer after dark) as well as bike-run, generally 5k runoffs post-long ride. Never have I attempted the full run-bike-run sequence in training. During the cold weather, such a workout is a bit problematic, as the sweat worked up on the first run obviously could make the first few miles on the bike quite uncomfortable. Sunday it was up to 39 degrees by 10 am though, so I laid out all the clothing I'd need and gave it a shot. I decided to go for the full long course distance ala Carrboro. This should be interesting...

For the first run I tried to dress fairly lightly, but I wasn't brave enough to go in shorts. Just running my standard around NRT and the Clock Farm trail loop, right away I felt good and hit the first mile in 7:06 or something. The next two were about the same, and then I started to think of the long miles ahead and backed off a bit. I ran right to the door of the house, ending with 5.1 miles in 36:20 or so.

T1 did not go as quickly as I'd hoped. I was overheating in the house, and had to make a typical morning post-coffee nature break, and also reset my GPS because it lost the signal. I have no odometer on the fender bike, so I planned on using the GPS for the entire workout. Fortunately, once I reset the receiver, the first part of the workout was still in the watch's memory. I rolled out of the driveway 12 minutes after ending the run. I was chilly but not too bad.

My plan was to stay in zone 2 for the first hour of the ride (by HR) This meant 131-140 bpm. After that I'd try to pick it up. Of course, I hadn't planned out a route or anything. Heading south on 138, I think I had a tailwind, because I was flying. Relatively speaking of course, as this was the fender bike. I averaged about 32 kph for the first half hour, and not much less than that for the second. In Taunton I cut across the Lake Sabbatia dam (you may know this one from the 6 o'clock news, as it's a trouble spot during heavy rain) and over to 140. Here I made a dumb move of extending my loop to the west. I was thinking 1:36 on the bike would be about right, and did not want my mileage to come up short. Well, it didn't. I also got a lesson in du-preparation. Experienced multi-sporters might see this as obvious, but it's much easier to hydrate on the bike than it is while running. I did not bring any liquids on my run, and only drank a small amount during T1. A large and a small wb on the frame of the bike would normally be plenty of fluid for a two hour ride, but coming on the heels of a 5 mile run, the first bottle was gone early. To make a long story a touch shorter, I pretty much ran out of fluids 20k from home. I did not want to muck up my brick with an extra pit stop, so I forged ahead.

The wind wasn't in my favor at the end of the ride either. And I'd strayed further from home than originally planned. After maintaining 30 kph for the first 90 minutes, I pretty much ran out of fuel, both literally and figuratively. So much for picking it up at the end. It wasn't too bad though, and with the help of a few Clif Blocks, I maintained about 26 kph for the end portion of the ride, finishing up with just under 63k in 2:12, ~28.5 kph. T2 went a bit smoother than T1. Even taking the time to quickly mix up and dring a bottle of Clif Shot, the second run started just 9 minutes later. Retracing the exact route of run 1, I was pleased to see the splits come out virtually identical, beginning to end. It did not feel that fast. My legs were spent and I barely had the confidence to hurdle the chain gate separating NRT from Stonehill's property, but I did. And I made it, both times. The final time was exactly one second longer than the first. Weird. I wanted 3.5 hours total, exclusive of transitions, so I kept running past the house for a few minutes, kinda OCD like.

The total ordeal took 3:52, and was exactly 50 miles, just over 80k. I'm glad I did it. If I make it to Carrboro, I now have a little more knowledge and a lot more confidence. After refueling with two home-cooked meals of my own creation, I even managed to summon the energy to finally go out and buy a new dryer! Lint brush be gone! Thanks for reading.