Well another Monday and another one of those magical "recovery rides" this time 1:00 long. I have to admit i was a bit frustrated from Sundays ride. I shouldn't be but I was. I just hate being the slowest and so I spent a good part of Sunday and most of yesterday tyring to figure out why it was that everyone and I mean everyone was faster than I was. I though I must be doing something wrong, or there is something wrong with the bike. i just see all these people ride by and they look so effortless it was really bad. On Sunday I remember seeing this old man on some sort of mountain bike. I was steadily gaining on him on a deserted stretch of road. As I passed by him he was almost stoped and I remember saying to myself, "finally someone as bad as I am". Well that did not last long, two minutes past and the old man just flew right by me and I had nothing to even try and catch him. I kept asking myself why can everyone just go faster.
I went to lunch with one of the engineers from the company which I know has been training for a while. I knew he started riding maybe 3-4 months ago, and I asked him what he could do. When he said he could ride comfortably at 22-24 mph and do about 40-50 miles I was puzzled. I was convinced something had to be wrong. So, as it turns out yesterday's bike ride will not be a "recovery ride" it would be a ride to figure out what was wrong. Took off from my office enroute to the west as usual. I had planed to ride to the Dorado gas station and back. As I passed about 6 miles I felt pretty good but I was still on pretty rough road. I still had about 2 miles of rough road until I could find better asphalt to ride on and the ocean view to my right side. As I left the rough road I just let it rip. I got on a heavy gear and just zipped thru the road. i got on the aero bars and was comfortable at about 22-23 mph and I was feeling good. When I got tired I just pushed harder and when my legs hurt I just pushed harder. After a couple of miles all the pain was gone and I was flying thru. I was thinking to myself. "so that is how they do it". But wait I still have to go back and I don't see all those people puting out the effort I was putting out. I immediately dispatch it as a lack of fitness and I convinced my self that all those people had probably years of riding experience and that I will eventually get there. I was doing an awesome time until the road turned to the North. Right then and there it hit me. The wind that is, all 10-15 miles of it. I instantaneously figured out why I was going so fast heading west and I immediately thought "hoe in gods name am I going to head back". I took my water bottle for a sip and it was only 1/4 left so I had to reach the gas station and refill with water for the ride back. There was nothing I could do so as I arrived at the station I was decided on a good rest, some water and some calories. After about 10 minutes I headed back this time towards the east. In a few short minutes I was hitting the wind head on. Regardless of effort all I could do was 10- 11 MPH with times of 7-8 MPH. It was brutal. My legs were numb by now but I knew I had every muscle in them destroyed and not much power was left. Night had fell and I did not expect to be on the road at that time so I had no lights. That part is inexcusable I should have known better that to leave my lights in my bag. We had an old saying in the Army that I just remembered very clearly. "Assumption is the mother of all F...ups". So here I was legs exhausted, dark with no lights and cars flying by. Oh by the way 9 miles to go. I have to admit that quiting crossed my mind and I thought I should probably stop at the first commercial place I found and ask for a phone to have someone pick me up. After all there was no SOB there giving orders so no one will have to go to sleep, and quiting "really",,,, I don't think so!!!! This is the Ironman there is no timeout or quiting, and as the General said, "You can quit, and no one will care. But you will always know". Not a chance my mind was made I will reach my destination. I took some risks by riding very close to the rail as means of some protection against the incoming cars, but even with that I was risking a puncture so there were really no straight forward solution. As I pressed on I reached a part of town that lets just say it is a world of its own. No problem during the day but at night and alone that is a different story. I had but one option which was to go thru as fast as I could and I remember thinking that there were only two bad things that could happen. I got hit by car or made into someones girlfriend, especially wearing my Lycra shorts. So I caught my second wind and zipped by until I reached the traffic light to turn towards my office. At this point my cadence was about 40-45 and I was just ridding the contour of the road with all power exhausted. In the end I reached my destination and I must say I felt pretty good about it. I had just had my first complete muscle failure workout in the past 20 years. Urrraaahhhhh!!!!
As I got home I felt all the acid in my legs I could not process. I was in pain. I took a shower and straight to bed. I was in such pain I slept for maybe minutes at a time and I went to the bathroom very frequently just to move my legs. In one occasion I woke up and was on my side with my legs moving as if I was peddling. That was crazy. I decided to put on my compression socks and that relieved me a lot. It gave me some comfort to sleep for the rest of the night.
I woke up feeling very spent from yesterdays ride and a not so hot night sleep. But I was happy. What a ride!!! I went to my swim practice and we did as usual some more drills although today we started swimming more distance. We had a great practice and as I got out of the pool felt winded and spent but I felt good.
In the old days pain was an indicator that you had worked hard and eventually will get better. I don't like the pain but I have to get used to it settling in for a while. At this point I am pretty comfortable that I am running to the limit of my bodies ability, and yesterday I learned how to ride to my limits. My limits next time will be further and that is how I can build up on my fitness. Swimming hard is fairly easy but I figure that speed is not the most important thing in the swim. I need the endurance on my legs and that is what I need to work as much as possible.
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