Thursday, February 21, 2008

Soledad Climb!

Todays workout called for 1.30 bike
4400 yrd swim
1.25 minute run
Due to my lack of biking I decided to ride 2.30. As it was a shorter ride we decided to do the climb up Soledad. This is a 11 mile continuous climb with a very steep section near the end. Eveyone had spoken about how hard this climb was last year at the camp, I had missed it...so I was quite excited to do the climb. The ride up was quite enjoyable except the last mile or so which was quite tough. The mountains are breathtaking and you really are in awe as you climb of the beauty and power of your surroundings. The road turns to gravel around 6100feet up. It is around 3000 feet of climbing in 11 miles if I'm looking at the map right. Today the wind made it a very interesting ride. You had the climb on the way up and the wind on the way down. It' s almost hard to imagine that the downhill was almost tougher than the uphill climb. The winds are blowing around 28mph with 38-40 mph gusts. I did this loop twice(except the last steep section as I was running short on time)) and the second time the wind had really picked up. I was holding onto my bars tight and really pushing the downhill hard. By the time I pulled into the parking lot I was feeling quite shaky! As I rolled in Mariana and Andrea were getting in the car for swim so I had to run up to my room drop my bike off and head straight down with my gear. Danny was there to meet us at the pool at 12. He looked a little unsure about the workout as it was his day off of swim and Mariana talked him into swimming with us. I ate a bar quick and we headed to the very chilly pool deck. We almost had the whole pool to ourselves as nobody wanted to swim with the wind. Its pretty bad when their are whitecaps in the pool. The only great thing is the pool is 82 degrees and perfectly warm to swim in.
Our swim workout 1000 warm up
4x (300,200,100 build)
800 Zone 2
200 cooldown
This was a great workout...I seemed to hold 125's for 300 /120's for 200 /115's for 100's. I am feeling a little better in the water....not quite like a fish yet...still got alot of work to do! We all worked hard and we were happy to finish off with a easier 800.
Andrea is feeling much better as her stomach was bothering her alot and she too managed to get a good swim in.
I am eating now...although my stomach doesn't feel like food and I shall go do a 50 min run in an hour. I shall hold off on the long run until I am stronger.

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