No swim today. It was nice sleeping in. We started at 9:30 a.m. this morning out in the hotel parking lot with a transition clinic. Barb, nutrition and motovational coach, had a transition rack set up and Aaron took us through the process of how to get through transitions smoothly and quickly. On my next sprint or olympic distance race I'm going to use the transitions techniques and see how much I can shorten my transition times.
For today's training all we had was a long ride. The plan was to complete the entire Ironman course. We started at Sandhollow reservoir at about 10:30 p.m., a little later than planned. The hills on the ride from Sandhollow into town weren't as bad as I thought they would be. On the first loop out to Veyo we had a little bit of a head wind but it was nice having the wind to our backs coming from Veyo to St George.
At the end of the first loop we met up with the pace vehicle to refuel and fill water bottles. One of the gals was done at that point and while I was helping her load her bike the other three Ironman riders took off. (We were short on time to get the second loop in and had started drafting taking turns leading.) From Bluff to the far southwest side of St George, riding on my own, I wasn't able to catch them. Looking at the clock I didn't have time to get the second loop in so I rode from there back to the parking lot at Sandhollow reservoir. I got back to Sandhollow just after the sun had gone down finishing with 102 miles. I was a little bummed out I didn't get to ride the second loop of the course and get the full 112 miles. |