Another long BRICK and a hard days night

My long group BRICK that was scheduled on Saturday was rain delayed. It was rescheduled for Sunday morning. More rain. Finally at noon on Sunday we were able to take off. However the rain scared away most everyone. Ben and I were the lone participates. The sky was gray and it looked like we might get a little wet.

We were both planning on working on our half iron distance heart rate paces and nutrition. I was loaded up with GU and would take one every 45 minutes while drinking a diluted Gatorade mixture. I'm pretty fortunate in that I have a cast iron stomach - even that meatball on a cone the night before could not stop me.

The sun was popping out here and there and the temperature was just about perfect. I had my arm and leg skins on but I could have gotten away with shedding either or both of them, but I did not want to be cold if we got into showers.

The bike went well and we clocked about 63 miles 3:36 - this included 3 stops for water and bathroom. Ben will be at New Orleans next month. We got to chat about race strategies from wearing socks in longer races to peeing on the bike - both valuable information. By the time we got off of the bikes, late afternoon, the weather was perfect. We took a somewhat long transition and changed out our clothes and hit the trace.

We were running at a comfortable conversational pace. It was easy! Ben was suffering a little from his Achilles and we took a couple of 1 minute walk breaks. Still we finished 8 miles in 1:19 (about 10 minute miles all things considered). I felt like I could run all day. This is very encouraging to me, however, I know that at my race pace it will be much different. After a fast bike I can imagine a fast half marathon run. I'm working on my visualization and mental preparation. I'm not kidding myself - this is going to be tough.

Yesterday was a killer at work. It is spring break here at the university so it is a good time for computer outages. We have been renovating out Data Center and had to move all servers to new racks. This requires powering everything down, removing from the old racks, moving to the new racks, powering everything back up and hoping that it still works.

So a core group of people started yesterday morning at 7AM and did not finish up until after 1AM. Everything went surprisingly well. We ate well (too much) all day. I blew the diet with bar-b-que, baked beans, Kristy Kreme's and banana nut bread.

My legs felt fine most of the day following the BRICK, however, the 18 hours of lifting and being on my feet started to take a toll. My quads started to ache a little bit last night. I can think of better recovery scenarios.

I will check in with work today and then have a nice bike ride. I'm driving to Texas in the morning to visit with my father and my sister and her family. My brother-in-law Joe (also my best friend from high school) is a fantastic swimmer and I am taking my wet suit. Joe often brags about getting into the pool in early spring when the water is unbearable. I bet the lake temperates in Texas are in the mid to high 60's. We will have to take a look.