Smartass Camp Day 4- flat part deux and long run pain

Oh, man it was a long night. Who would have thought that exercising a bazillion hours a day would have you tossing and turning for 8 hours? Well after finally falling asleep at 5am it was time to get up at 6:30 to get ready for the swim. Well I realized what may have been keeping me up... I was STARVING! I did remember at one point in the middle of the night having the distinct urge to go grab a Cliff bar, but I'm so sick of those damn things that the thought passed quickly. So when I got up this morning I parked my butt on the floor with 2 giant bagels and a jar of peanut butter and ate until I was nearly sick. Welcome to Smartass camp.

The swim this morning was an uneventful 2700 meters. I shared the lane with Dave and Miranda and we just cranked it out without too much enthusiasm. After the swim we had to quickly get ready for the ride. Smartass coach had suggested that maybe I skip the bike since I looked like such crap from my restless night, but since it was just a 90 minute Zone 2 ride I figured what the hell...

Well, a mile into the ride I got another surprise from the bad luck fairy. I'm riding along, minding my own damn business, when bump, bump, bump, bump.... ugh. The tire was FUBARed. I stopped and luckily Will R and Will W stopped with me to fix the tire. The tube hadn't set properly near the valve and it was bulging out of the tire. I was probably less than a minute from tire explosion. Thankfully we were able to get it fixed on the fly.

So now there was only one problem... By the time I was up and rolling I was riding with 2 pros and 2 solid age group men who were all set to do Zone 3 intervals. Good stuff. Dave was nice enough to ride his warm up with me and then off he went hammering out his set. I figured it would be fine because we were doing an out and back and the rest of the group should be heading back shortly and I could jump back with them. This is where the fun began...

I was riding along not paying attention when all of a suddon the group went flying by me in the other direction.

Ok, I just have to turn around and catch them.

But of course this happened to be at the busiest section of road so I had to continue in the other direction for a good 2 minutes before I could pull a U-turn. By this point I was a good mile behind the group.

So here I am, by myself with a sketchy tire situation and no tire levers with the nearest group 1 mile ahead and gaining distance.

Time for a hammerfest!

I started riding like there was no tomorrow. When I started the pursuit my average speed for the ride was 17 mph at mile 12. With my basic math skills I figured that I would need to ride 4 mph faster than them to catch up in 15 minutes. Hmmm... can I do 23 mph? Well, I figured out the answer was yes... in zone 3... and after 20 minutes I was going to be friggin SPENT! I caught up with them at mile 20 and my average speed had increased to 18.8 mph by that point. Holy hell!

I was so trashed when I caught up with them. Thankfully Khai was nice enough to spin back to Paulo's with me because I don't think my body was up to any more intensity for the day, especially with a 2 hour run on the schedule!

After the ride we force fed ourselves pasta and went to take a 45 minute nap and then it was already time for the run. No rest at Smartasscamp.

When we started the run along the Rio Grande it was hot and we were tired. But we forged ahead. The run was just like any other 2 hour run I've had except... no treadmill or 7 layers of clothes WOOHOO!!!!

The only downside to the run is my foot. I've had a nagging pain on the inside of my foot just below the ankle. The nagging pain turned into a real pain at mile 9 and now I'm praying to the allmighty triathlon gods that I don't have a stress fracture. Damn it! Just when I was getting the hang of this training thing. Thankfully Sophie comes in tomorrow so I will enlist her ART help for an opinion on the matter. I think I'll be skipping the trail run tomorrow evening just to be safe.

Your moment of zen...