Tuesday, August 9th 2011

Swim:  65 minutes in very cold lake

Bike:  4:00

Run:  30 minutes

comments: 
I had an ok swim, nothing special.  I didnt wear a swim cap, so it took a good 10 minutes for my face and head to get used to the cold.  I wore a wet suit and was very cold.  (its the same lake I used for my 6 hour swim test last year – which I did without a wetsuit)
It goes to show the power of the mind.

As soon as I finished swimming, I went home and ate a big lunch.  It was raining and I really didnt want to do a 4 hour bike in the cold rain, but Mario said to meet at his house and he would ride with me.   My schedule had “4 hour bike ride, sight seeing” … Mario uses the expression “sight seeing” to mean “easy” …. so I expected a long, easy ride.

A couple weeks ago, Mario drove by a very steep road that goes to the top of the mountain next to his house, and laughingly said “we will climb that for training…”  Seriously, the road is so steep that I sincerely thought he was kidding.

Within 2 minutes of starting our ride, he turned left and we started the incredibly steep climb …. it was absolute hell.
45 minutes or so …. of non stop steep climbing (riding very slow) we reached the top, and rode down to the other side …and then got to the bottom and started another very long climb.

With the risk of sounding melodramatic, because of the steepness and long long climbs, I have never had such a difficult bike training in my life.  (this includes when I rode the Nice Ironman course for training)  It rained a majority of the ride and was cold and miserable.

I was scheduled to do a 60 minute run, but seeing how tired I was, Mario told me to just do “30 minutes easy…”  I was so tired and cold and wet that I happily agreed … but my run was crap.  My legs were very tight and sore, and easily the worst run I have had since being in Austria. 

All in all a shit workout.  I think mentally, I wasnt into the workout from the beginning so it made my training more difficult than normal.  Also, my legs are very sore from the core strength workout from the night before.