Brick workout on Sunday

But first,

Saturday was and on your own run. I went out to the Iron Horse Trail to go run and I was supposed to meet up with Melissa, my mentor, but she was no where to be found :( I was supposed to run for 45 solid minutes but I could only make it 20 min and then I had to walk. I walked for a bit, and then when I started to run again, I had some gnarly cramps in my side so I could only do 2 sets of 4 min run, 1 min walk but then they went away, which was nice. I manage to run out the rest of the time and then I was done. My shin wasn't bothering me too much. The pain was there and it was kind of bothersome, but it was not excruciating like it was on Thursday. I think it's because I've been icing it and taking pain killers and really focusing on my foot fall and take-off.

Today. Today was killer. Killer times 3. I met up with the Team at Lake Del Valle in Livermore at 745 in the morning and suited up in the wet suit for our morning swim. We swam in the lake for 30 min which was 50 DEGREES!!! Do you know how cold 50 degrees is?? It's alot colder than it sounds, I'll tell you that much. I've never swam in open water before but it's more or less like the pool, except it's freezing cold and the water is a nasty green color with little bits of floating 'stuff'... gross. And I learned that when the water is that cold, your body tenses up and wont let you exhale underwater so it's very important to relax but it's impossible to relax when you realize you can no long feel your hands or feet and you are freezing to death. It took me at least 5 min to get used to forcing my body to exhale underwater so I could attempt to swim in a somewhat normal fashion. But even after getting used to breathing, I still could hardly swim. The water is so cold you have a hard time catching your breath. I could swim all of about 5 or 6 strokes before I had to roll over on my back, gasping for air. It was a very disappointing swim because if I swim at my race anything like I was swimming today, I will never EVER finish the 1.5 kilometers. After I swam my sorry butt back to shore and dragged myself out of the freezing water I toweled off, put my tights on over my tri shorts, and put of my running shoes I hopped on the bike.

For the Olympic distance, Intermediate level, the bike ride was going to be 90 min long. That doesn't sound too bad until they showed us the course. We had to go out the way we came in and then out a side road. Since the distance was longer than anybody could reasonably ride in the time frame, we just had to turn around when we hit the half time mark. If you have ever been out to Lake Del Valle, to get there you have to go up and down this crazy stupid steep hill which you don't even think about in the car until you are on a bike trying to curse whoever thought of this course but you can't because you can't even hardly breathe. It was 3/4 a mile up hill just to get out of the parking lot and then it was A MILE AND A HALF straight up the hill. It was a steep as my mom's driveway but it went on FOREVER!!!!! My legs were screaming at me and I was wishing I had more lower gears. After we got up the hill, we rode down the other side, which is approximately a mile. That was a nice rest and I'm sure wore down alot of my brake going down the hill. I rode along the side road for awhile and then I turned around. But then I had to go BACK UP THE HILL!!! It was supposed to be easier because the slope is less but soo hard because I was already tired.

Long (and complain-y) story short, I finally made it back up and down the hill and into the parking lot where I put my bike away and took off my tights and went for a 10 min run. It was brutal. My shin started to bug me and I felt beyond tired, but I made it out and back.

As far as nutrition for the day, I had part of a bagel with peanut butter and some water for breakfast. After the swim I had a power bar gel (double latte flavor, not bad) and some gatorade. During the bike ride I kept hydrated with my gatorade, but I wish I had a gel to eat at the turn-around point. I finished my two bottles of gatorade right as the bike ride was ending (perfect timing!) and then I had another gel (tangerine flavor, hella gross) and went for my run. After I got back I had my recovery shake (chocolate flavor, not too bad) and went home. The end.

And I'm really glad tomorrow is a rest day because I'm beat.

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