Well Ironman Florida training is amping up quite nicely. Last time I wrote I talked about bonking and hating my ride, well things are a little different now. Saturday I rode 95 miles with Red and didn't want to kill anything!! We stopped way more than I originally wanted to, but it worked out for the best. I ended up eating about 1,500 calories during the whole bike ride, that's more than some peopel eat all day and I did it in one bike ride. The funny part, I still lost weight. Yep, even with cooler temperatures, setting my watch to remind me to drink every 15 minutes, and Red making sure I was drinking more, I still lost 2 pounds during our excursion. Meh, it happens.
On an awesome note I have found a Pandora station that I love, discovered that the Xenia Station has free hot dogs at noon on Saturday, and have made a running route that is rather enjoyable and already has it's own water! My new Pandora runnign station of choice has become Queen, not only does it regularly play Bohemian Rhapsody, one of my all time favorite songs, but it also plays a ton of songs that I never realized help me relax and run better. I was listening to my old stand bys for running with Pandora and was pretty bored with my selections. I realize that they are trying to play similar songs, but once I hear the same selection 3 times in a 3 hour period, I'm shot and annoyed. I switched to Disney even just for a change of pace, but discovered that it only plays bout 10 different song selections. So during mile 2 of an 8 mile run I decided to go for Queen and see what happened. I love it!!! So that will become my new reliable regular running station. If anyone has tried the iheart radio app for their ipod or android let me know if you get better service than I have. I can normally make it through about 5 minutes but then it buffers or something for about 10 minutes until the next song starts, or commercial. I thought the radio would be a good change, but apparently I was a little off. The route I was running when I made this discovery is my new go to route for longer distances. I used to be reluctant to make a route starting from home that was longer than 5 miles, simply because of the lack of water. But now I have a route that has a drinking fountain at mile 4, which works out perfectly for my 8 mile run. I'm usually ready for more water by the time I get home, but it's better than attempting 8 miles with no water. The only downside to my new route is I have to cross 2 overpasses for 75. The one on the north end of my run isn't too terribly busy, but the one closer to my house definitely keeps me on my toes, not every one is looking for a tiny runner when they're getting on and off the highway. So far I've played human frogger and survived, so I'm hoping to keep it up, at least until I find a better route.
Now back to the free food. I love free food. If you say you don't like free food, you're lying. During our ride yesterday Red and I stopped at the Xenia Station to fill up our bottles. While we were wandering in and out of the bathrooms and looking for the drinking fountain a nice lady asked if we would like a hotdog. At first I said no because I thought they wanted money, then Red asked me what time it was because they were free hot dogs after 12:00. It was a quarter til 1 so FREE FOOD! Yes, we turned our 3 minute stop into a 15 minute stop to enjoy some free hot dogs. We hopped back on our bikes after our snack, went the 20 mile round trip to Yellow Springs and back, and had another hot dog when we arrived. I thoroughly enjoyed our new snack. I had no idea that eating hot dogs during a huge bike session would work out, turns out that it was a welcome change in my nutrition! Solid food as opposed to gels and gummy chomps. Also, it was a pleasant surprise!
This week is another solid week of training, where we will definitely go into the triple digits of mileage, but it's going to be fun. I can feel my body getting stronger, and I can run faster for longer periods of time. I'm not thinking "I'm dead, I went out too fast" at the beginning of every run, now I'm at mile 8 or 9 thinking all I need is maybe some water and a gel. I'm getting excited about Ironman more and more every week, but I'm also getting nervous. I'm worried my running mileage won't be enough, or I'll get dropped in the swim, or something stupid. Oddly enough, I'm the most confident about the bike now. It used to be my least favorite thing and my most dreaded weakness of any triathlon, now I think it could potentially be my strength, or at least not my undoing.
Back to work! Happy training!
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