The night before...

Here we are just hours away from the start of Ironman Canada! We'll give it one word from what we've seen: brutal. Tomorrow is going to be a really difficult day - not only because it's a tough course but also because it's going to be 91+ degrees and sunny. Who would have thunk that in Canada, eh?

We flew into Seattle on late Wednesday, well, more like early Thursday since we didn't land until about 12:30am. We were at our hotel and in bed by 2am only to wake up nice and early the next day since we were still stuck on Eastern time. We spent the day having fun playing tourist around Seattle. We love that city!

Friday morning we hoped in the car and drove 6 hours over the border and into Penticton. We went straight to race registration, ate lunch and headed to the condo we rented to relax for a bit and then back into town for the pasta dinner. It was ok. Lake Placid was way better and much more motivational. We called it an early night and fell asleep almost immediately once getting back to the condo. I was ticked off immediately at Ironman at registration as I was going through the stops in the tent and arrived at the chip activation stand and the woman says to me "and do you have your chip strap?" (to hold the chip on your ankle). My reply was "No, I didn't know I was suppose to bring my own" and she says "oh, well, that's ok, you can purchase one here for $5 - this is something new that we will be doing at our races" OH MY GOD IRONMAN - SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?!?!?!? I said no thanks, I'll get one somewhere else. I would rather give my money to a local bike shop than give it to Ironman. I just don't understand how it's ok for them to charge you for a chip strap when we are required to wear a chip. Thanks for the forewarning on that one!

Today we spent the day prepping for checking in. I had a mishap while on my bike ride... my seat bolt broke. Eek!!! We brought that guy straight into the bike shop (Bike Barn, who also received my money for a chip strap) and the crew there was AWESOME! It was fixed AND tuned up in no time. Luckily, I only had to pay $50 for the bolt piece and not $300 for the entire stem, phew! Justin's bike got a nice surprise tune up as well and both bikes were looking good for racing! We dropped the bikes, bike bag and run bag off, drove the run route home and are now sitting on the couch about to eat dinner and go to sleep nice and early. I had a nice volunteer give my VIP treatment at check in who gave me step by step instructions on where and how everything is going to go down tomorrow. Ha, loved it - he was awesome!

Well, this is it! My number is 2367 and Justin's is 331. You can track us on Ironman (http://live.ironmanlive.com/Event/Subaru_Ironman_Canada).

WISH US LUCK!!!! Oh and Joey, screw you for not being here!!!!! hahahahhaha.....

Taper has begun!

Just a quick update... I completed my final long workout on Monday with a 20 mile run! Paced a 9 min/mile, so I'm happy! I tried Sports Legs for the first time, just out of curiosity and have concluded that they suck. It's suppose to prevent/delay lactic acid build up in your legs during endurance workouts. While my calves were fine, my thighs started burning with about 5 miles to go which never happens. When I say burning, I mean with every step I wanted to cry. To top it off, my legs have never felt worse the day after a long run than they did after this one - I threw out the rest of the sample pack and will not be taking those ever again. Now, time for some tapering... ahhhhhhhh. It's good to not feel guilty for not working out crazy amounts :) While our bikes have already begun their journey to Canada, Justin and I hop on a plane Wednesday night - I'll write a post on final thoughts and what not before I leave... now kick up your legs and relax a lil!

Bike riding

On Saturday, Justin and I went out for another long ride. With an 82  mile route mapped and added to the Garmin, we made our way to Potomic to start our ride. Again, we started late at 11:50am and the humidity was up and temps hot, already above 90 degrees. Before starting we decided to make this a race pace ride. Properly fueled and prepared for the efforts, we headed on out. Within 5 minutes of the ride, I was glistening (more like dripping) with sweat from the humidity. It was crazy, I hadn't even given any serious effort yet and I was soaked. At mile 20ish, we made too early of a left turn onto the wrong road and instead of the Garmin redirecting us or telling us to turn down the NEXT road when we made a U-turn, it instead decided to redirect us immediately back to the start. Not being completely familiar with the roads, we had no idea at the time. Then at mile 30 we saw a familiar road and thought "this isn't right, we shouldn't be here", and discovered we were 3 miles from the start of our ride - DANG, we're going to have to do the route over again plus add some miles at the end to get in the distance we want! I got frustrated because I hate doing loops but Justin was successful at getting me to chill out and realize doing another loop wouldn't be so bad. After all, it was a great route with some challenging hills. So, off on loop two we went. We stopped shortly into the second loop to get some shaved iced at a rickety stand at an intersection. They were delicious and perfect for a bike ride snack! After completing almost all of the second loop we noticed how lucky we were to have missed all the rain storms that seemed to have rolled through our route as the roads were wet the second time around... that is until we had 4 miles left in the loop and downpours just opened up above us. It was not so awesome. If forced us to take the last of the ride very slowly and when we got back to the start we agreed to call it quits and not add on the extra miles to make it an 80 mile ride... so in the end it was a 66 mile route with 5,056 elevation gain. We paced 16.3 mph which is not race pace but the day presented several challenging factors that slowly ate away at us such as the humidity, temps and rain.

This weekend we're planning on doing 100+ miles for our last heavy effort on the bike. Let's hope we are able to get ourselves up nice and early so that we aren't biking in the smack middle of the day. We're dropping our race bikes off either after our ride or early next week at Bike Transport to send them on their way to Canada. This is crazy how close we are to Ironman!!! I should probably start swimming...

Summer heat

Today I had plans to do a 20 mile run - I cut that one short by 1 mile and did 19 due to heat. I was stupid and left at 11:45am so it was already above 90 degrees at the start and the day wasn't cooling down (it hasn't for about 3 weeks now).
I mapped out a run where majority was on the Rock Creek Park Trails which is mostly shaded so figured it wouldn't be too bad. However, I started and ended my route along the mall making the Washington Monument my turnaround point - putting the first and last 4.5 miles in dead sunlight. I held strong for the majority of it but lately, again, due to heat, I've been needing to stop in the shade and rest for a couple minutes to cool down - but I made it until mile 15 before needing my first break in the shade. That was followed with three more rests in the last 4 miles. When I hit the street before my loop around the monument, I decided to cut it short and head straight home instead- after all, I looked like a salt stick, had gone through 5 water bottles and had heat radiating off my body. It wasn't pretty.

When I got home, I quickly downed some recovery mix with ice cold water. I weighed myself (I'm now keeping track of my weight until Ironman to make sure I don't get too out of control with the food, hehe) and had dropped 4lbs of water weight from that morning! Holy cow... my lunch never tasted so good and I treated myself to a bottle of Coke - it was delicious!

I've worn my yurbuds for two runs now (including today's) and so far I kinda like them. Yes, they definitely stay in my ears unlike other ear buds so big plus for that but they're designed for you to hear the noise around you (i.e. if you were biking you can hear cars coming) and because of this, any wind overtakes the music and when you're running along a road with lots of cars, you really have to turn the volume up. It's a bit annoying. Still would like to do some more runs with them before I give my definitive recommendation on them :)

That's it for now! Until my next post...