How many times have you been in a race and had a well-meaning spectator call out "You are almost there! Just a little further!" when in fact you still had a long way to go. This *always* happens to me in the Hapalua Half Marathon on Monsarrat. Sure, I am past mile nine and only a few more to go, but those last four are a roller-coaster ride around Diamond Head. I have to believe the people yelling encouragement have no idea what it feels like to attack those hills with legs already crying out to stop. If they knew they would be passing out shots of whiskey to stave off the pain.
A couple times this week I have found myself sinking into the same mindset with regards to Honu, the Ironman 70.3 Hawaii race, my "A" race of the season. By that I mean thinking I am almost there, so why work so hard? The truth is, this is the time for the really big efforts, no kidding around. This week, and especially this weekend, is the last of the big, race-like efforts.
This is what I found in my training plan bike workout for May 5th:
All the training you have completed in the past few has been to prepare you for the next 4 long bricks. Do everything you can to set these workouts up for success.
That day, the first of the four bricks, I rode multiple loops of Kalanianaole Hwy and ran along Kahala Ave. The run was nice as I could switch back and forth between pavement and grass -- the Honu run "features" a lot of golf course grass. The bike was not so good, in that to hit my target intensity on the hard parts I had to ride so fast I felt unsafe. Part of the problem is my lousy eyesight, but even with 20/20 vision the lag from seeing a car pull out from a driveway and moving my hands from the aero bars to the base bar to apply the breaks is just too long.
The second brick day was fulfilled by the Honolulu Triathlon. Perfect. The bike is a closed course. The road conditions presented some challenges but at least I did not have to worry about cars. I used it to practice my pacing and fuel, and had a good outing. I treated this a a "B" race, so a little taper and I did race it, meaning I went deeper than a typical training day.
This Sunday is the third, and toughest. By that I mean as specified in my training plan. I am following a Matt Fitzgerald Half Ironman plan and love it. The first one called out a three hour bike consisting of 10 minutes easy warm-up, 4 x (30 minutes race pace/10 minutes easy) 10 minutes easy cool down. The second was to be the same bike with a slightly longer run. This week calls for a three and a half hour bike, same as before with a longer tail, and a fifty-five minute run.
Ah, but wait.The Honu bike course is not flat. Far from it. The profile looks like this:
For anyone interested in TSS, ATL, CTL and TSB, here is today's PMC chart:
If I stay on track I will end up perfectly positioned for the race on June 1st with form at +6. Which is -- Yikes! -- almost here.
