Group Bike & Run Training - May 3

I personally am not a big fan of the early morning sessions on weekends, but I do understand the value in getting them out of the way so one can enjoy the rest of the day. I ended up arriving 30 mins late, part due to being lazy and the other part because of construction. Luckily Chrissy arrived 15 mins after me, so I did not feel as bad! ;)

I forgot my second bottle of water for my bike, which meant that I had to selectively hydrate myself. We also met one of our team members we don't get to see as often, Herb (the doc from A2). He has done the Philly Tri before, so it was good to have some experience on-board our team.

Well, we started off with Herb and Ron in the lead and I tried to keep pace with them, but after about 4 miles, they just were going too fast for me to keep up. However, I did not let them out of my sight, and eventually Stu also caught up with me. My next target then was keeping pace with Stu which I did for a good 15 mins, before he also sped up and joined the Ron/Herb group. I stayed with my strategy for atleast keeping them in sight, which helped me pedal real hard to do so. It seemed they were just cruising, while I was struggling to keep up. In any case, I lost them at one of the traffic lights, but I know I was going fast because I never really saw anyone else behind me even during the while I was waiting for the light to change. A couple of lights up, I was not sure what the right way was, so I ended up calling Stu to get my bearings right. It ended up I was on the right track, just that Stu was ahead of me.

I was definetly panting most of the way through the rest of it, especially with the rolling hills, which to me sometimes seemed to be a continous climb!

On my way back I saw Don heading the other direction and then the rest of the group followed. I pedaled hard to reach our parking area so maybe I could catch Stu for the run part. They had already left by the time I got there, so I just waited until Kimi and Chrissy came back from the bike run. We had apparently biked 29 miles!!!

I took a little breather and hydrated myself and ate some sport beans, before I hit the road for my run. We were running 4 miles today, so I was trying to keep my pace steady. The first 5 mins into it and my legs were cramping up (thus the brick workout), and just about that time I saw Stu running towards me. I stopped to listen, which really helped my muscles relax a bit. He told me to turn when we see the orange cone with the 1 mile sign on it, as that is our 2 mile mark. After I started back, my legs started to relax and the body seemed to get in the mood for the rest of the run. The run up to the cone seemed short, but ironically the run back to our starting point seemed longer, even though the distance was the same!

In any case, I made it back before the rest of the crowd, so I did not lose my position given the effort I had put into it. Suffice to say, I was fairly exhausted and the bagels & bananas were a pleasant reprise after our ordeal. Ron also informed us, that we had actually run 4.4 miles, 0.4 miles more than our original target distance!

There was definetly a sense of accomplishment, given that I had been worried about the run part, but apparently my body has been adapting to the beating it has been getting lately. :)