Busy Weekend - Run - Bike - No Swim.

Busy weekend! I got a 14 mile run in on Saturday morning. It was not as fast or as easy as I would have liked for it to be. It was not much faster that the ½ marathon at the end of the ½ ironman – the only saving grace is that it was not nearly as hard as that run. Training smart I took a GU with me and had it at about the half way point. Still – at the pace that I ran I want the run to be easy. An afterthought – like oh yeah I ran 14 miles this morning – I had forgotten. I don’t think it will ever get there but I am working on it.

Saturday also called for a swim. I made it to the gym and there was a kid’s pool party taking place. There was one lane set up for lap swim but there was a guy doing some rehab (water jogging or something). My pool spoils me. I almost always have a lane to myself and never have to share. I went up stairs and did some upper body and abs strength training. I checked back on the pool at the top of the hour and it was still going strong. There were kids swimming in the one lane now. The life guard told me to go ahead and jump in but I was in easy defeat mode and passed. I did not want to kick the kids out and more honestly I just did not want to swim. I’ll make the swim up this week.

Sunday was a 50 mile bike ride with hard gear standing intervals. I ate breakfast and then mixed up some Gatorade sports drink. I like to use the powder and had a new big container. I check the nutritional side panel and it said one serving was 50 calories. See there – I’m trying to be smart and take nutrition and stuff. I decided to mix up about 150 calories – 3 scoops. Wow – that seemed like a lot of powder. I looked at the panel again – 1 serving is 1 tablespoon. How big is that scoop? I got out the tablespoon – one, two, three, - four tablespoons per scoop. I had mixed up 12 servings in one bottle which equals 600 calories. I had already mixed it up so I divided it into two bottles. This would still make a potent punch for the ride. It was salty, sugary slurry. It is nice to know that I did not have any stomach issues and actually ate a power bar at the half way point (I took a 5 minute break half way to refine the water bottles and eat the bar). The intervals were tough. I stood on the pedals in the hardest gear for 1 minute and then recovered spinning for 5 minutes. The 50 miles took 2:33 (even with the rest period – not my fastest but okay). I had about 800 calories on the ride – that is a new personal best!

Sunday afternoon was guy stuff – changed the oil in the truck, grilled chicken and ran all of the lawn care equipment out of gas!