60/10 Brick

When I saw we had a 60/10 Brick on the schedule, I thought maybe that was a bit much...
Honestly...a lot of the schedule this year looked a bit much. It's my third season training for a 1/2 IM and I've had three different coaches. I have to say that although I've loved them all and they've all had us well prepared, Coach Glen has us really well prepared.

We started out at Sauvie Island yesterday at 7:30 am to clear skies and warm temps. My first ride this year in a tank top...WOOT!!

Some of you know Sauvie Island is not my favorite place to be for several reasons...but my most recent reason happened on Friday night. ajh had recommended a book written by a Portland writer and the story was based in Portland. I ran to the library to check out THIS thriller and Friday night at bedtime I was reading of a murder that took place on...where??? Sauvie Island of course. Well...at least that's where the body was dumped.

So, I arrived at the island, not quite sure what the day would bring...other than my longest brick workout ever. We headed out around the Island for a 12 mile loop and then out Hwy 30 and up Rocky Point. I've never ridden Rocky before and it was a good grind to get up to the top. At one point, we hit a little pitch that had me recovering for quite a while after. I couldn't seem to catch my breath but I kept on until we came to this view, which was just so much more spectacular than this camera could capture. If you look close you can see Mt. Hood in the back...but it looked so much bigger and beautiful than that in person.

Most beautiful view!

We headed to skyline and our first aid station where an old teammate, Ricardo, filled my bottle while I was gifted with sweet manna from Heaven in the form of my new favorite workout candy - orange slices. The early riders had split off into several groups then. Two groups of two ahead of us. I contemplated rushing through the first aid station to ride with Erica and Laura but really wanted to visit Ricardo and take a break after that hill. Diane and Katie and I grouped up and just FLEW down the hills to arrive at our next long climb at Thompson. Another great aid station was manned by the parents of teammates Heidi and Holly. They took awesome care of us and then we headed down Skyline to McNamee and back out to the island and ended with 58 miles on the odometer. I felt GREAT!! What's 58 miles after doing 70+ the last two weekends, right? By now the temps were in the mid 80s and we were doing two out and backs to get in our 10 mile run. Our ride took 4:08:00 and with aid station stops it was probably noon by now.

With pretty much no shade on this route, we headed out for our first 2.5 miles that ended at another aid station manned by Kelly's parents. Team in Training has so many great supporters!! To have aid like this every weekend on our workouts is just magnificent. Diane and Michele and I did pretty good on our first leg and were happily surprised with ice...for our hats, our bras, our shorts and our water bottles...and more candy and our 2nd 2.5 miles were spectacular. I almost wished we hadn't stopped for a bathroom break, but we did. First...at this aid station, Ann Marie had out her can of sunscreen and was dousing people with it. Fortunately, I had her spray me down because as it was...my first coat must have sweat off good on the ride because I was getting pretty burned. I felt like I had to go to the bathroom so badly, but once I got in the porta potty, I had nothing. This third leg of the run was not quite as fun and I alternated feeling pretty hot with having goosebumps. We spent a little more time at the aid station this time...standing in the shade while icing ourselves and then we headed back for the final 2.5 miles. I honestly had no goals for this run other than to run the whole thing. We were closing in on being out in the direct sun for over 6 hours and I was spent. I'll talk more about Pac Crest conditions in another post, but this day was about as close as we could get to those conditions, so in that respect it was perfect. There were lots of people walking and some who only did 5 miles, but we persevered and we didn't walk and we got to the end and I was so emotional I almost started to cry. What a workout!!

We sat in the hot parking lot on our beach towels and ate potato chips and candy from the market next door and drank tons of water and cheered on every last teammate as they came in from this very tough brick.

TODAY>>>>A bunch of us are doing the Hagg Lake Swim. It will be my longest swim ever - 2.48 miles!
Any guesses on how long I'll be in the water??