Second Nature

It eventually becomes second nature.  Four days off the bike after Wildflower and I'm back in the saddle.   I had a PR race on the bike, 2 hrs 54 min averaging 19.20 mph on a hilly course.  5 days after and Thursday's 56 mile ride felt good.   The level of fitness I have today is exactly where my training journey begins.  The baseline at Wildflower has been set and its now time to double down on fitness for Ironman Lake Tahoe's 112 mile ride.  

After Thursdays 56 mile ride, on Friday I did my 12 mile long run from the water tower to the Rocky loop and back.  It was a hilly and very hot run, just as hard as the run at Wildflower.  To me, this represents the hard work and harsh elements I'll need to consistently check in on to eventually adapt.  Running fast on fresh legs, on flat roads, in cool conditions is exactly the type of training I don't want to get used to as Tahoe will be hilly, hot, at elevation and on fatigue legs off the bike.  These elements will require a completely different approach to run training if I'm actually going to run that entire marathon at my goal pace instead of going out hard and blowing up.  By throwing in these variables now during my consistent long run build up, they will become part of what I do.  I'll adapt over time and not let these factors impact my performance come Tahoe.  

What is second nature?  Its simple.  Be consistent.  How you feel on your long run/ride is how you will feel on race day.  If you want to ride fast on race day ride fast in training.  If you want to run fast on race day run fast in training.  If you want to run hills on race day then run hills in training.  If you want to know how your body performs in heat run in heat.  It's going to be my hat trick because I am doing the work on each of these variables now as homework to execute the familiar come race day.

My goal for the base phase is to accomplish these two workouts (long ride day followed by long run day) consistently once a week and adjust the difficulty by going longer and longer each time I go.  It will be like groundhog day with more miles thrown in each time this routine repeats.  I actually prefer using Exiter as my starting point as the course from Visalia is not race course similar enough and I need to start in the foothills and incorporate as much hilly and hot race like conditions as I can.     

I also had some flex time, instead of doing this on a Saturday and Sunday, I took care of this after work on a Thursday and Friday.  By doing so, I'm making room in my families schedule for Jamie to work the Wipeout race on Saturday and of course Mothers day on Sunday.  

In summary, this workout is going to be my groundhog day as I throw down more volume and repeat it week over week until I reach 100 mile ride and 20 mile run feeling just as comfortable as this weeks 56 and 12 just did.   

I'm also looking for feedback.  Given I'm spending 2/7 days a week on what I just described, how would you spend the other 5?  

Base of Blue Ridge