I have no idea what is going on with the crazy weather in this town. It was raining this morning. Raining!!! Summer starts tomorrow and we had rain.
The wet weather had me frozen with indecision, Cervelo or training bike, how wet was it, would there be more rain? In the end I went with caution and ended up on the training bike. I was rolling out over mostly dry roads thinking, wrong choice, but after an hour or so I got rained on. Choice vindicated in my eyes.
As well as rain there was also a lot of wind, which was pretty annoying. However, despite the weather the session went okay. It was a ride and run session, with some intervals during the ride. All that went smoothly, although the ride back into the wind was a bit of a slog. I also met up with some of the nice folk from Break Your Limits and rode with them for a while, so that was nice. They even waited for me when I was late for our rendezvous, which was pretty cool of them.
Once I was on the run it was all about pacing. Like the other day I struggled to slow down to Ironman pace. Although I was pleasantly surprised at how easy quicker pace felt. I will admit that once I got to the final 4km of the run I thought 'stuff it, I have 4kms to go, I have a tailwind, lets just go' and I perhaps threw the pacing out the window. Up until then though I had been focusing on it pretty hard. It was better than on Thursday. I still struggled, but I am getting a better feel of what that slower pace feels like, which makes it easier to settle in to.
When I got my program at the beginning of the week and looked at today's session, I had thought, 'sweet a short, easy session on Saturday, taper time is here'. Half way through the ride today it occurred to me that I am not sure when a two hour ride with a one hour run had become a 'short, easy session'. Such is the bizarre perspective that comes with Ironman training I guess.
Other than the training bit today I had a bit more race prep, which included buying some drink bottles and some gels. I am not sure when the last time was that I bought a drink bottle. Quite possibly never. But today I realised that I don't currently have any drink bottles that are quite right. By quite right I mean as big as possible and don't leak. I have plenty of bottles, but most of them are 600ml bottles which are what got handed out in the last few races I have done (the source of most of my bottles). I figured that for an Ironman I would prefer to start the race carrying as much fluid as I can, so I was really keen for some 750ml/800ml bottles. So it was down to Churchill Cycles to see what they have. It is strange spending money on something that you can be pretty certain you will throw out at the first aid station, but they were a good price so I don't feel too bad.
With the gels I had a little bit of a panic (only a little one). When I got to the store I couldn't find any of my normal gels. I was starting to think that they had stopped stocking them. Not the end of the world, after all there are plenty of other choices (hence only the little panic), but it isn't the sort of change you want to make a week out from a race. However, in the end I found a few boxes tucked right up the back of the shelf. I bought all of them, just to be sure.
Tomorrow is the beginning of taper proper, with a pretty easy day. The day starts with a bit of a spin and ends with an open water wetsuit swim. I often end up doing these swims in the pool, but I thought this time around I would actually do an open water swim. So tomorrow it will be down to the river for a bit of a splash. It will give me a chance to test out the repairs I have done to my wetsuit as well as get some open water practice.
Hopefully there is no rain in the morning so the Cervelo and I can have some time together.
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