I forgot to mention in yesterday's blog that, in addition to swimming, I rode my bike for 45 minutes, but more importantly, I essentially ran a hard 5K over a very hilly course. Why does this matter? Because I'm literally 2 weeks out from Ironman Boulder (as of tomorrow), and ventured to the top of my heart rate yesterday. Whether this was smart or not, only time will tell, but one thing is for sure, I did put some physiological stress on my body. Then, today, I followed that up with a group bike ride to the top of Gibraltar Road in Santa Barbara. We started at sea level and topped at at 3818 feet at the top of the climb. I knew that the major portion of the climb would require about one hour of constant hard effort, but was also excited to see what kind of wattage I could average during this. Sure enough, over one hour, I climbed a 6.1 mile Category 1 Climb (average grade of 8%) and essentially averaged 200 watts. I've never done that before. Similarly, I averaged ~ 190 watts over 90 minutes. If it hadn't been for the descending, I'm sure that my 3 hour average wattage would have been a record as well. I spent 2 hours today cycling at over 170 watts. The other great part was that I still had legs at the end. In fact, I was surprised at how good I felt when I finished a pretty tough 5 hour ride.
Some of this bike fitness comes from my training. Some of it comes from the boost of an ironman 2 weeks ago. And some of it comes from having spent nearly 3 weeks at altitude, and now I'm back at sea level. What excites me the most is that today's ride will give me a further boost in the coming weeks as I prepare for the Santa Rosa 70.3, where I want to hammer the bike segment! And, from the long term perspective of Kona, another 5 hour ride is in the books, and this one was challenging. Granted, I "only" rode 62 miles, but the climbing was intense, and the descending was psychologically intense, not to mention strenuous on the hands and forearms (braking much of the way down on steep, winding downhill roads).
I'll sleep well tonight, thinking of a short ride in the morning before running tomorrow. I'm happy with where my swimming is, now I'm also happy with where my cycling is. My run seems ok, based on yesterday's hard 5K, but I'm tempted to do a 2 hour run tomorrow. We'll see what my body says!
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