July 4 adventure brick

Coach Zach gave me a speed workout today of 4x1 mile to get some speed back in my legs which I was excited about doing. Frank and I wanted to warmup with our friends who had a ride this morning. They were doing a short hour ride with 1 min hard 1 min off pick ups. We decided this would be fun to make this speed workout a brick because yes, I want speed back in my legs, but mainly I want speed back in my legs OFF the bike so this seemed like a great addition to our workout. We headed out and the I was holding 23-24 mph for my pick ups because it was quite windy. After the pick ups we past a new gated neighborhood called Tallahassee Ranch Club. We snuck in to tour around and it was beautiful but huge and we got turned around back there many times. Our 1 hour ride turned into a 2 hour ride! I was thinking oh well, more miles never hurt, afterall I am doing an Ironman.

We got back to the trail head where I was to start my mile repeats and  my coach had instructed me to do them at 10k pace so that would be about 6 min pace for me right now. I came through the first mile at 5:30 FLAT!! I was so excited. I jogged around a bit and then thought, wait, I am going too hard and not going to accomplish the workout Zach had wanted for me so I slowed down for the next mile and came though around 6:30. I still felt good so I thought, the hell with it, let me just kill myself out here to see what I am made of. I took off for my 3rd mile and came though at 5:30 FLAT again!! Now I was really excited, I have not been doing speed lately so to find that speed within me still was exciting. I knew this last mile was gonna hurt but fearlessly I went for it again. I took off on my last mile and was holding my pace for another 5:30 mile but in the last 200m (LAST 200m!!!!) I slowed way down and I am kicking myself now, but my legs really gave out on me, I was pushing a little too hard to keep that pace. I remember the same thing happening to me at the Jax sprint #1 a few weeks ago. I got to the last 800m and my legs gave out on me. I could no longer hold the pace so I had to slow down. So, I came through the last mile at 6:10. Oh well, it was a great effort and I did over the amount what my coach wanted. I know for a fact that if I had not rode my bike 2 hrs prior to the mile repeats I would have been golden but in this sport, you can't think like that, the only runs that count are the ones off the bike :)