I had a big event on Friday at work and was not able to work out in the morning or at lunch. I was feeling better and a little stir crazy so I jumped on the bike trainer for a little while. It was an easy hour.
I got up early on Saturday morning and headed out to the lake. The lake was perfect. I calculated a route and headed out. I was planning on swimming about an hour and a half. It was going to be a nice and easy swim. I swam out to the buoys, about 600 yards, and then I was going to do 3 sets of approximately 1000 yards. Each set got about a minute slower. The first was 18:30 then 19:30 and finally 20:30. During one of the sets I practiced the ‘peeing on the swim’. This has not been easy. I think it took me about 200 yards to get it going and unlike other times – once it got going I had to concentrate to keep it going. However, I was successful! I swam back the 600 yards to the dock. Total swim was 4200 yards in about an hour twenty. This swim was a big success – it was like a slow, easy jog.
During the bike, I was testing my different intensity levels (either 82 % or 88 % of LT). For the 40 miles this felt easy – as it should. The only problem was on the hills – it was difficult to keep the heart rate low on the climbs. To keep it low I had to jump down to my granny gear. During race day I will have two extra gears. My training wheels have a 12 – 23 cassette but I will be riding either a 12 – 25 but probably a 12 – 27. The 12 – 27 is for insurance. Regarding the racing intensity - I will probably split the difference for race day. I want the ride to feel easy.
I have put a lot of miles on my race bike this year and the rear brake cable has started to drag as well as the front derailleur. I took my bike over to Drew at Hattiesburg Cycle for replacement and a once over. I do most of my own bike maintenance but I would rather Drew catch anything this week than have something pop up on race day.
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