One Clydesdale’s Journey

I’ve said that before and I’ll probably it again. But it’s worth mentioning again since I seem to need to remind myself from time to time.

Not that I always remember to listen to my own advice or knowledge, but I try.

But proper nutrient is important whether you are talking about a race or training, without you are sure to hit the wall and crash and burn.

And once again I managed to do just that.

As my last big workout before taper week, I did a brick consisting of a long bike ride and a run. Prior to heading out I had a big breakfast and then did a few things around the house to at least let it settle down so I wouldn’t cramp up.

I still felt a little full as I headed out on the bike, but nothing terrible. As I was headed back home I took a look at my watch and had only burned 600+ calories. Nothing too drastic and since I was feeling okay, I opted to not eat anything that I brought with me.

I got back and headed out on my run, still not eating anything during my transition.

I finished the first mile of the 3 mile run (it turned out that my 15k training plan gave me a 3 mile run today which play into my brick quite nicely) and things started to take a turn for the worse.

The remaining 2 miles where totally brutal; I was able to complete each mile within the training plans time limit, but it involved a lot of walking and wasn’t very pretty.

I got back home and bonked big time. A look at my watch showed that I ended up burning over 2,000 calories in the end.

I was light headed, starving and couldn’t seem to get my feet back under me. I finally ended up crashing on the couch for at least an hour before I was able to start feeling normal again.

A quick intake of a couple hundred calories would have prevented all that from happening.

I learned that lesson during a race and now I’ve learned it during training. Hopefully I can remember those lessons and not have that happen again.

So, as I mentioned earlier; it’s now taper week for the Devil’s Challenge. I’m not as ready as I would like to be, but I’m feeling like I should be able to at least better last year’s time, especially since I have the new bike.

A quick look at last year’s results had me finishing at 2:01. I’m hoping to cross the line with a time of 1:50 or less. We’ll see what happens.

Later,
John W.
A Clydesdale in training