Backwards Duathlon!

Okay, first: um, yeah, meal tracking...what's that again? I always fall down on meal tracking on the weekend. I can say this much:

Friday I was slightly over on calories.
Saturday I was even or under on calories.
Sunday I was under on calories.

I do know how much exercise I did, though. And I want to talk about that, after I list it out.

Friday Exercise:
Swim 40 minutes
Indoor cycling 1 hour
Total calories burned: 750

Saturday Exercise:
Bike outside, 2 hours
Total calories burned: 1200 (because 2 hours was on-the-bike time, not stopping-and-still-having-an-elevated-heart-rate time)

Sunday Exercise:
Bike 45 minutes to Mercer Island
Run 1/2 marathon in 2:06
Bike 1 hour 15 minutes home (yeah, it was a longer route...and much more tired legs!)
Total calories burned: 2400

I felt great Friday and Saturday - Saturday I took on a hill that had haunted my dreams (Lakemont Blvd in Bellevue or Issaquah, I'm not sure which city claims that area) and the rest of my ride was fun - especially a couple miles in Issaquah alongside I-90, where the rollers just let you FLY - I didn't drop below 20 mph at all, and it really is rollers, not up and down. My pace was typically about 20-22 on the uphill parts, 26-28 on the downhills. Fun!!! But that's just for a few miles and wasn't indicative of the rest of the ride - we went at a comfortable pace and stopped to regroup a few times.

I was pretty nervous for Sunday, though. The plan was to bike to the half marathon, run the race for training only (goal time was 2:10 - 10 minute miles), then bike home. A backwards duathlon (since a du is usually run-bike-run, but we were bike-run-bike).

Danielle and I biked at a pretty brisk pace on the way to MI, but it's definitely more downhill than up to get there. We felt great, though, when we arrived. However, we got there too early: we had almost 90 minutes to wait before the race, and after we changed our clothes and locked up our bikes, we were cold. We ended up wandering around a nearby grocery store, reading food labels.

We executed perfectly on the race plan: we didn't start out too fast like I tend to do, we didn't change the plan partway in, and we ran the race in 2:06 despite a potty stop each (so I'm thinking we would have run the race in 2:02 or 2:03 if we didn't have to pee). The course is hilly, but not oppressively so - it's weird. I felt like I was going uphill almost all the time, which makes no sense. It seemed like we had a mile or so of uphill, followed by a brief downhill or flat part, then we went up some more. No hill except for the very last one just past mile 12 was steep though, so we were able to keep a strong, even pace throughout the race.

I started feeling great about mile 4, and that lasted until mile 9 or so. That's when my quads started feeling tired.

At mile 11, Danielle and I were discussing our fueling strategy with Stephanie, a dietician at the club. Both Danielle and Stephanie had already consumed two GUs - I had only had one. I asked Stephanie if she thought it would be worth it for me to have another, since we only had 2 miles to go - would it kick in in time? She said maybe - so I figured I'd try it. Well, it took less than 5 minutes for me to feel like I had a second wind. So that was awesome - then Stephanie told me that's a sign of excellent fitness. If your muscles can immediately start using the glucose you give them, that's very good. I was happy.

When we first got on our bikes after the race (after a stop at Subway for sandwiches), I could feel every single rotation of the pedals. My quads and glutes felt sore and tired - I couldn't feel any pain in my hamstrings. Danielle said it was her hamstrings where she was feeling it. We both suffered on the ride home, and while we didn't take the absolutely easiest way, we did granny-gear nearly all the hills (even though we wouldn't have needed to had we been fresh). However, it felt great to arrive home!

I made a mistake for the second time upon getting home, though: I didn't eat or drink right away. Instead, I made things worse by getting into a hot bath. Not smart - my head started pounding and I thought I was going to pass out. (Not the bath part, but the pass-out feeling part happened a couple of weeks ago when I did that 45-mile ride with Matthew.) So John got me water, and I just sat still in the tub and drank. Then I took a cool shower and felt better - then I ate a big lunch and felt a lot better.

I'm exhausted now. I took the kids swimming this afternoon so I could spend some quality time with them, since I did so much exercise this weekend. It certainly wasn't a heart-rate workout, but it was work! It was also nice, though, to feel weightless. I was debating between riding my hybrid bike slowly with the kids or swimming, and the sporadic rain made me choose the pool, which worked out nicely. But now it's 8:45 p.m. and I'm ready for bed!!!

So here I go, starting my recovery week. Yay! I think I've earned it. I'm only short 15 minutes on this crazy week, and that was abdominal exercises. I could do them now, but I won't - it's just not that important to me and I'd rather get in bed.