Bike #1

• 22m 46s
• 6.42 miles
• 16.92 Mi/hr

Ride from Joyride Bicycles to the time trial start. Fast pace for the HR (115 average) because there was a 14 mph tailwind the whole way.

Bike #2

• 1h 18m 46s
• 24.91 miles
• 18.98 Mi/hr

The course was a teeny bit short, finished in 1:17 flat and I hit the split on my watch but didn't stop it until I had cooled down a couple minutes. I was hoping for more but I'm pleased with this result. Hopefully by the time the sprint/olympic tri season starts I'll be able to maintain 19mph AND do a run afterwards :)

Not sure if the yPwr field on the BT logs is for Normalized power, but that's what I put in there. It said I had a brief pull of over 1,000 watts and I'm not sure if I should believe it. A few times I was pushing and pulling on the pedals trying to break the bike in half going up some hills toward the end, but those other ones are in the upper 500s for watts, not the thousands.

---

So a little recap of the ride: started out going into a stiff headwind for about 8 miles. I knew once we turned it would be a slight headwind/mostly crosswind, so my plan was to hold back in upper Z2 until I hit the third turn before I started letting loose. This would get me through the hilly sections without blowing up as well as let me drop the hammer when the wind was at my back and make up any time I lost to anybody who spent the first half working their tails off in the wind.

I was talking to a guy named Topher beforehand about how my goal was to hold back enough on the windy section to have enough gas left in the tank to hammer the second half. He said something like, "I dunno man, once you get passed you might throw that out the window." Well that didn't happen exactly like that, but what did happen is after I turned to go North (the first turn) I saw the first rider up ahead and I was like a shark who had smelled blood in the water--I was on a mission! The first person went about 4 minutes ahead of me and then I think everyone else was about a minute or two after each other based on their projected finish times. So to catch the first rider after a short time was really encouraging. It was also a little unnerving because I was wondering when I was going to get caught by the people behind me. Part of me wanted to get caught because I wasn't 100% familiar with the course and didn't want to make a wrong turn. Well, I didn't end up getting caught until the second turn by the guy who ended up crossing the line first (theoretically we should have crossed the line at the same time if we had all projected our avg. speeds correctly). Then it was another couple of miles before I was caught by a group of 3 who were drafting off each other, so I guess I was okay losing time to that group. It's just a recreational ride and they were all roadies, so whatever. That was about the time I decided to dial it up a notch. I had been keeping my power right around the 200 mark because I realized that once I started going over that my HR went into Z3. So I hovered around 230 for a little while until about 3 miles to go I look back and I see another guy catching me. I started standing on the hills at that point and trying to hold 250 even down the hills. I tell ya, it was tough!

Having the power meter made pacing MUCH easier, especially into the wind and up the hills. Knowing that ~200w corresponds to upper Z2 HR for me helped me to drop my gears faster going uphill than I was doing when I rode the Kansas course on Saturday, so that was a little eye-opener that I was pushing a little hard on the hills that day. I'm really looking forward to next weekend when I do another epic long ride (probably going for 60) and having a few more rides under my belt where I get a better feel for my power numbers and their relationship with my HR numbers. I think this was a really smart purchase for me.

Bike #3

• 20m 30s
• 5.16 miles
• 15.10 Mi/hr

Ride home from the TT. Legs were NOT happy with this! :)

Run

• 1h 15m 35s
• 7.05 miles
• 10m 43s /Mi

Only had a few instances of HR strap funkiness, so that was nice to have some decent HR data for this run.

Felt really good all things considered. After 10K the wheels started to fall off, but I pushed through anyway. Since I did the huge ride yesterday (16 miles farther than my longest this year) I decided to take it easy on the body today and do a 4 min run/ 1 min walk interval throughout. I actually averaged 3 seconds per mile FASTER today than my 6.2-miler last week when I did 4:30 run/ :30 walk. Whoa!

Bike

• 3h 28m 07s
• 56.00 miles
• 16.14 Mi/hr

Kansas course. More details to come when I have a little bit more time.

Well no wonder I felt so bad, I spent 45 minutes in Z3 and another 17 in Z4 (almost 2 minutes in Z5!) That's just poor pacing. Part of it was I was hanging with the fast guys at the beginning, just chatting away. I was in the mid-150s which is right in the middle of my Z3. Then toward the end of the ride where it got really hilly my HR had started to creep so what "felt like" 150-ish BPM was around 156. I was doing 20+mph across the entire dam at 156bpm, just couldn't get it to go down even when I dropped down a gear. Going up the dam hill I was doing 6.2mph, that felt pretty awful.

So from what I can tell, the first half of the course (with a few exceptions) is more or less flat/gentle rollers. After that, it's more aggressive rollers and very little flat until you turn on that 750 Rd and that 660 Diagonal Rd (I think that's what it was named anyway). Also of course 1000 road and the dam are flat too, but then there are boogers going both to as well as through the park to get to T2. I'm thinking I will stick to mid-Z2 for the flat sections and go especially easy once the hills start after the bridge that goes over the west side of the lake. There's a huge hill there and then you turn right and you're on another huge hill about 2/3 of a mile later.

For this ride the temps were 90 degrees and the wind was out of the south/southeast at what I would estimate to be 15 miles per hour, with a few gusts 20-25mph. Ideal wind conditions (well, besides no wind) would be out of the Southwest because then it's essentially pushing you back toward T2 for much of the time.

I was dumb and brought a whole TWO water bottles, both with Gatorade I had mixed/frozen the day before. They were completely thawed by the time we started riding and I had to be stingy with how much I drank out of them, knowing it was going to be a long day and there were no aid stations. I made them last and only had to take a little bit of Justin's water at the first turn-around (I think the 20 mile mark) because I was craving plain water. After I got done I got a 32-oz Gatorade out of my car and even though it was very warm I chugged half of it. The fast guys asked me if I wanted a beer which I declined, but I did take them up on an offer for a cold water, and I slammed that thing in less than a minute! It's strange because I didn't feel like I was dehydrated or dying of thirst (which I fully expected to feel by the end, plus possibly a headache, but neither occurred). With how much I drank afterward, obviously my body really needed some hydration and it felt SUPER good to get some in me. One of the guys (John) had the same bike as me AND he had the Speedfil hydration system so I took a look at how he had it set up and asked a few questions. Now I'm confident I can get mine all hooked up and ready for action. Apparently the thing holds 40 ounces! Pretty awesome.

Swim

• 41m 54s
• 2500.00 yards
• 01m 40s /100 yards

200 w/u

3:26

400 pyramid (100,200,300,etc)

(100)
1:36

(200)
1. 1:44
2. 1:47

(300)
1. 1:45
2. 1:52
3. 1:45

(400)
1. 1:46
2. 1:47
3. 1:49
4. 1:46

(300)
1. 1:46
2. 1:47
3. 1:48

(200)
1. 1:41
2. 1:39

(100)
1:33

5x100 hard but still maintain form, leaving on 1:45

1:33
1:35
1:38
1:38
1:39

200 easy long & strong form-focused c/d

1. 1:50
2. 1:51

Bike

• 1h 15m 51s
• 24.35 miles
• 19.26 Mi/hr

BOOM

5 minute PR on The Loop!