Saturday, September 17th 2011

Bike:  204 km (7:08)
transition:  about 8 minutes
Run:  1 hour 45 minutes

Comments:
With the risk of coming across melodramtic, today was one of my best workouts of my life.

Because of the weather report, Mario decided that we would do 4 x 50km loop so be near home if the weather got as bad as the report expected.
I was greatly, relieved because our normal course is f… hell …

Today’s 50 km lap has several long straight aways, thus its much more like training in the UAE than anything else we train on in Austria, however, it still has 8 different “challenging” climbs.

Immediately, within minute from starting the ride, Mario set a fast pace – instantly, were going 35k/h … even in the face of a climb, we were flying.

I try not to draft off him, so often times to ensure I am not drafting, I am forced to try to ride next to him, but must keep up with him.
About 30 minutes into the ride, I had to shout over to him asking if he was in a hurry or something…

The first 100km went by very quickly.  The only issue was a strong head wind.

The last 100km was smooth, and I was happy with my performance.
My ass didnt hurt, and I rode for a majority of the ride in the TT position

I didnt expect Mario to run with me, and to be honest, I was hoping he wouldnt…but he told me the last 2 km on the bike that he was going to run with me.

After an uneventful, and fairly quick transition…I started my run.

As usual, Mario gave me a head start.

I felt strong on the run, and ran at a much faster pace than normal.
Mario passed me around the 40 minute mark…but I tried my best not to let him kick my ass too much.

I noticed that he didnt move ahead of me, and seemed to have leg pain … so I ran quicker than ever before in training, and caught him ….
I wasnt tired, but as I went to pass him, he seemed to suddenly wake up … and took off, and I had to run even faster to not let him kick my ass.

Before the run, he told me “only run an hour today because tomorrow you have a hard day…”

Surely, just to punish me for my arrogance at trying to pass him … he kept running at the 10km lap (57 minute mark)  and he kept running…
Next thing I know, we are climbing a long winding road … and then he took a steep path that led to another steep path — to make a long story short, we ran an extra 40+ minutes.

When we finished, I had a big smile on my face and thanked Mario for the great workout … my smile masked the “fuuuuckkkkkkk you” that I was thinking.

Tomorrow I have a 4 hour run followed by an hour bike.