Hammering in CO

Well, it has now been 23 days since I arrived in the beautiful city of Denver. I have to say, I do love it, but the training has been hard. Not harder than I expected, per se, but the difficulty has lasted longer than I anticipated.

Everything is pretty slow. The hills and the altitude have to be the hardest part. I could get through the hills, they really aren't THAT bad. In fact, I think I'm pretty good at hills on the bike. I can keep up with some of the locals biking up the hills. Heck, I can beat some of the locals up the hills. But one tough part is the dehydration from the altitude. It's super dry, so no amount of water (or chapstick haha) is enough. I did an 11.8 mile run to prepare for a half marathon I ran on August 18th and MAN going without water was the WORST idea.  I knew there was one water fountain on the trail, so I assumed there would be others. There are a few but not enough. After mile 10, I ran into my house, chugged water and gatorade, and then headed out for 1.8 more just to get in a little more distance.

Whereas I used to expect 18 mph averages on my training rides, 16.5 is really an accomplishment out here. The trail I ride most often twists and turns, goes up and down, so when I'm not climbing or take some bizarre corner (which is virtually always) I have to hammer to keep the pace up.

I have now done the course of a half ironman that I decided to do, twice. Well, not the full course. You can take out one out-and-back portion and cut off about 10 miles, while still covering all the terrain. Last time I averaged a disappointing 16.1 mph doing 48 miles of the course. Today I did 44 miles of the course and averaged 16.5, so I'm pretty happy. In the first hour I covered 19.3 miles, so I think that helped. The rest of the course, other than a middle 20 miles, is pretty much long slow hill after long slow hill. My hamstrings are also feeling incredibly weird/painful so that didn't help towards the end. Hopefully after a taper week that will.. go away. I bought a groupon for a sports massage, so I think I'm going to use it ASAP and hope that will help too.

Funny enough, the only thing that hasn't taken a huge drop is my swimming and it's beginning to become the activity which I most enjoy because it sucks the least. SURPRISE. I joined the Denver Recreation Center, which is nice because it's a ton of rec centers in the area and I can basically go to whichever one I want to swim, even though they all have very limited lap swim hours.

Running has been disappointing like biking. It's amazing how 9:30 pace feels like 9 min pace. Ouch. Plus not being able to get through as many miles without feeling dehydrated and my HR being through the roof. It's tough! I can't get through 4 miles without stopping to walk. It kinda feels like I've gained 20 lbs or something, and I've actually been losing weight (though I'm totally convinced it's because food is expensive haha).

So, it's tough. Once this race is over I think it's time to do some new types of exercise with a short break from the "swim, bike, run" routine. Definitely some HIKING! I'm sure you'll hear about those adventures too.