Big Day 2

Down to the last 4 weeks to race day. 

The last week of January was terrible for weather here in Queensland, with pretty constant rain for the whole week and localised flooding.  I'm usually pretty happy riding in the rain but here the road surface and the number of cars just seem to throw up a lot of spray and visibility is too poor for safe riding.  I had just finished two weeks of reasonable training so just took the opportunity to have a bit of a recovery week. Recovery is actually where the body gets stronger not during the training.  Being an older athlete only makes it more important and I have been very careful not to over train.  Certainly from a swimming and running perspective this has not been difficult as any decently long session will have me sore and stiff for a day or two anyway.

So after a week of waiting for the rain to go away, last week was right back into it with my second Big Day Training to get through as well.  The weekdays were just ticking over and getting back into the groove.  A couple of hilly rides, a lunchtime run, a swim/run session and feeling pretty good about the weekend.

The Big Day again started at the Valley Pool with a 3300 metre swim in just over the hour mark.  Kicked off a bit earlier this time at 6:20AM.  I was tempted to carry on to the full race distance of 3800 but they were preparing the pool for a water polo tournament and I was the last one in the pool as it was.  Felt pretty good at that point and would easily have managed the extra 500.  Home for breakfast and a read of the paper.  

The day was warming up quickly and was nearly 30 degrees when I set off at 9:30.  I ran a bit over the 90 minute rest between the swim and bike after I decided to grab a triple shot long black to get the system lubricated before I headed out.  After the issues I had with planning a route on my last Big Day I had decided to take one of my standard loops and just add on a bit of a loop at the turnaround.  This was a lot more successful, basically I rode halfway to the Gold Coast (45k) added a 40k loop out to Jacobs Well, and returned back the same way.  This was a really nice ride through canefield countryside which was pretty much deserted.  With the temp getting up to 33 I had drained my 3 large water bottles after 4 hours so stopped to top up with another 2 bottles of water.  These only just saw me through the last hour, at least race day should not be anywhere near that hot or humid.  Even with an intake of around 3.5 litres I was still down over a kilogram in weight when I got back home, which is another litre required.  So the bike effort ended up as 5 hours on the bike, moving for 4:35 and 130k.  Really wanted another 10 k but not really crucial on this day.

Another 2 hour rest for lunch and a cool-down in the pool and then it was off for the last part of the day.  It was still 31 deg plus even at 4:30 so no respite from the heat for the day.  I recorded a high temp of 33 on the run.  I followed the same course as the last big day, I decided that if I felt up to more distance I could just vary the route once off the main road back from the city.  As it turned out I didn't feel up to that.  With it being so warm I carried a water bottle with me,  I couldn't find my usual run bottle so used a standard bike bottle instead.  This was wider around the neck and was a lot less comfortable to lug along.  I kept getting crampy feelings in the fingers so was constantly changing hands.  The run went pretty well for the first hour then I started to struggle.  I had already decided already to use walking as a means to ration out the energy, it is what I will be doing on the day so may as well get used to it.  I had a few walking stints after the hour mark, honestly more than I intended, some due to tiredness and some just to guzzle water with 1.5 litres downed in the last 30 minutes.  Again the price of training in the heat, and I should also have taken some energy gels with me for a boost.  The run ended up at just over 21k and took 2:03.  If I could double that on the day and run a 4:06 marathon I think I would be pretty happy.  Wait and see but I think I might well be a bit slower than that.  Hopefully not too much slower.

So the last big day out of the way before the Ironman.  Those big days certainly do give you a degree of confidence around the amount of time you are going to be out there.  After both the swim and the bike I felt that I could easily have trundled on to nail the race distance.  Less so on the run but certainly getting some running under the belt when already pretty tired has got to be a good thing. 

So there is now only 25 days to go.  Two weekends of decent mileage before I travel over on the 26th Feb.