My First Century Brick!

Well after feeling fatigue set in yesterday and bumping my big day to today and cutting yesterday down to recovery, and still struggling through it, I wasn't expecting much today. But once I got going, I knew it was going to be good. 30 miles went like butter and yesterday's struggle just to get to that number was all but forgotten. I had biked all the way from the beach up into the national forest and was now moving through beautiful country, smooth pavement, and near deserted roads. By 40 miles I was starting to think that if I could ride a century without hurting than how the heck was I going to ride long enough to improve? At 50 miles some of the hills were starting to take their toll, but I was 3 hours down and headed back through the national forest. And right around 60 was about the time where it started to become a struggle. Luckily I happened upon a convenience store as I left the forest and chugged some cherry coke down to bring me back to life for the next few miles. And then I hit about 75 and it was all back into the wind from there. Each time I had to stop at a light it felt like a monstrously difficult task to get going and clipped in again. I did, eventually, make it however, and suprisingly the last 5 miles I felt myself revitalize to an extent. And so I went running...

How fast you ask? Did I trip over myself and fall into the ditch where I'm still lying because I'm too exhausted to move? Amazingly enough, I went right into a 7:30/mile clip and frequently had to back myself off from running faster! If you've been following my training, you might know that most of my runs and all of my bricks have been at a depressing 8:30/mile pace (or slower) and even my best aerobic runs done before biking were no faster than 8:00/mile. Now I had expected (hoped) to be back at a sub 7:30/mile aerobic run pace by the time I finished this training camp and had recovered enough from it, but to jump all the way back to that level at this time and AFTER biking 100 miles was completely, and pleasantly, unexpected.

Today. Was a VERY good day.