Week 13, Day 5 - 16 week full IM training

Bed at 10:30 PM. "Slept in" until 7:30...been a while since I've done that.

Took the day off so I could get my long ride in and be with the girls tomorrow.

Long bike//run
5:23 total
85.3 miles
averaged 19.4 mph
Ran from 4:45 to 5:23...about 4.5 miles
Temp on my PowerTap said 100 degrees was the average temp, and I believe it.
178 average watts
138 average HR on the bike

Great workout. It was really good to ride in some heat. An applicable day to say the least.
We went south and ended up around Tuscola at 30 miles. Stopped, emptied bladders, got fluids. I drank the water I had with me by that point and drank 32 oz from the stop until the next stop at mile 65.

We did a route that had some major hills. CR 279 and Hwy 277. Wind wasn't too bad...out of the WSW. And by "not too bad" I mean it was a shade under 20 mph...so it was blowing.
I drank an entire 32oz water in Buffalo Gap (mile 65) and drank half of another one before emptying the rest in my bike bladder.

Took two bottles of Accelerade with 2.5 scoops each in them. The first one lasted for about 3 hours. I drank half of the second one by the time we were done. So that was good to see that those two bottles should last the entire portion of the bike on race day, but I'm going to have an extra bottle waiting in my special needs bag at mile 56 of the bike just in case...don't want to run out of calories.

Took gels at 2hour, 3hour, and 4hour mark. Had four with me. Just ordered some more gels and I need to order more Accelerade mix, too.

I drank water all at once when we stopped but on race day, I'll fill up my bike bladder about every 30-40 minutes so I'll keep a more steady stream of water going into my system.

Also been reading some sodium research...was worried that I needed to get salt tablets or something for the humidity in Houston. But I discovered that the gels and Accelerade have plenty of sodium in them, so I don't need to do anything there...proved it today.

We shot out of the gate and my average watts was near 200 about 1.5 hours in...I told John we needed to take it down a hair...we did, and I think it's another reason why I felt so good at the end. Ended up averaged 178...thanks to the tail wind on the back end of the race.

We did some loops so we could get used to head winds late in the ride...also did some hills past the halfway point. The bike route on race day will have tail winds to start and head winds coming back...yuck.

Felt like I got stronger as the ride went on. The last 25 or so miles I felt really good. White, salt stains were covering my tri suit. We didn't have any run-ins with dogs or any other weird stuff on this ride.

Figured up that I drank about 1 gallon of fluids throughout the entire workout. I finished off my accelerade when we got back to John's, then took my hand bottle with water in it with me on the run. Finished it with about .5 mile to go.

Drank a half gallon at John's...another liter when I got home, and I'm working on another one now. That will be more than 2 gallons of fluid today.

Had a blended salad 1 hour before we started.
Recovery pudding about 30 minutes after I finished.

Menu:
pre-ride - blended salad (spinach, romaine, 1/2 avocado, banana, 2 dates)
post-ride - recovery pudding (spinach, blueberries, banana, 1/4 c almonds, 1/4 c each of carob powder, hemp protein, flaxseed, 1 strawberry)
Dinner - cooked broccoli (frozen bag with 1/2 can of no salt added tomatoes, seasoned with Mrs. Dash and oregano - Hope at 1/2 of this concoction)
             lentils, wild rice, pico, 1/2 avocado (cooked 1/4 c wild rice, little less than 1/2c lentils separately, pico was 1/4 onion, 1/2 tomato, 1/2 bell pepper, cilantro, jalapenos)...put all this together...and Hope and Haelyn ate half of this, too...guess I found a new meal for them! They cried when it was all gone! ha!
Snack - celery/almond butter, walnuts, frozen fruit, Nikki's (no sugar with strawberries), 5 small flour tortillas (3 with black beans, 2 with avocado spread on them)

Have an easy day tomorrow (easy 1 hour bike followed by 1/2 hour easy run)
Then a 90 minute run and 1 hour open water swim on Sunday...
then it's week 14 of 16...wow.

Really feel like my emphasis on nutrition is the reason why I felt stronger during the end of a super hot ride today...and why I'm recovering so fast...and why I haven't broken down physically yet.

Had a nightmare last night that I was on the bike leg of the race and the route wasn't marked and I didn't know which way to go and was riding around in circles wasting time...ha!