2 A What?

Rainbow asks the logical question, 'Why get up at early on a Sunday morning?' I also got that many times at the six old's birthday party I went to on Saturday, from friends wondering why I wasn't eating or drinking more.

Well first off, I don't see much of my friends outside of work anymore due to ironman training and many of my previous habits have been curbed. Second, I got up at 0245 so I and some team mates could start our long ride before it got to hot and before the real good cyclists showed up and made me want to get my ego involved, screwing up my steady state plan.

Four out of five of us made the 0400 show time, which is good if you want a reason to chew Trident gum but not when your waiting to ride. Mike showed up ten minutes late and took ten minutes to get ready, effectively messing up the first 50 minute loop since we had to meet another group in the same spot in 35 minutes (0500).

However, it was a great day to ride and I could not have been more pleased with the results. The mission for the day was to ride between 75-90 miles, essentally five or six loops on a 14.5 mile flat course. The goal was to get in long saddle time, nutrition, a low heart rate, higher cadence and be comfortable. This is a Florida Ironman simulation ride.

Time including stop lights, bathroom breaks, waiting for catch ups: 5hr 19min
Ave speed: 16.4
Ave Hr: 114
Ave. Cadence: 85
Nutrition rating: B-

I absolutely nailed all the things I wanted to. The HR really surprized me considering I was 20-25 beats slower than Mike and normally we are within about 5 beats, (we group check pretty regularly.)

I give my nutrition a B- because the mix started off wrong. My mix of CarbPro and Cytomax was light on calories since I ran out of product and I tried a mix of something else that was 200 calories of lemon lime flavor in a seperate bottle for the first loop but it didn't set right.

I definitely could have pushed another mile per hour had I wanted and my legs were right on the money after we got done. I did get in a quick run at home just to see what I had in the tank and the legs turned right over.

I just need to duplicate this about six more times before ironman with a bit more volume and bit more intensity but no more ego.