What are u gonna do when it starts to get hard?

In terms of long course racing, the question is not 'What if it gets hard', but rather 'What are you gonna do WHEN it gets hard', because it undoubtedly will at some point.  We have to prepare ourselves physically and mentally for that point when the pain really shows up and how best to deal with it.  When the pain comes knocking, what are you going to do?  I'm going to open the door, shake his hand, and invite him in for a drink.  Last weekend, I got a good lesson in dealing with managing pain and fatigue during my brick on Saturday, where I had one really tough workout. 

I struggled through the whole 110km bike ride, and was uncomfortable even from the beginning.  I was experiencing major discomfort with my saddle, my legs felt like they had nothing, and it was just tough overall.  Probably the fact that I swam 4400m that morning before the ride may have also contributed to my fatigued state out on the bike.  Luckily, it was a perfectly gorgeous day and I had company for 90km in the form of Larry from my swim group and we rode a beautiful route, which helped a lot!  But it was one of those workouts where you struggle to turn over the pedals and the legs feel completely fatigued/lactic acidy, and everything else hurts.  It was good practice for the mental game, as I focused on trying to keep a positive mindset and kept telling myself that the race isn't going to be easy and that this will toughen me up.  I was supposed to run 40 min off the bike but Geoff was home when I got back and instructed me to just do 20 min.  The first 15 were a struggle, but in the last 5 mins my legs magically appeared and I started feeling great!  Funny how that can happen. 

Those tough training days where you really struggle can challenge you mentally but they serve a really great purpose - they toughen me the F#$K up!  There's no place for whining or complaining, and I find it really helps to keep telling myself to 'just deal with it, you will get through it'.  There are going to be rough patches and there are going to be good patches, it's all about how you're going to manage those rough patches and not let them get to you mentally. 

My 2:15 long run the day after that challenging brick went surprisingly well, as my legs came around and didn't feel fatigued at all.  And this past week of training was also good, although as of right now (Sunday evening), I'm pretty smashed!  Here were the highlights of the week's training: Wednesday evening I had some hill repeats to do on the bike, 5x up the Villeneuve hill (about 2km long), so my solo ride totalled 60km/2 hrs. 

I was able to grab a pic of the sun going down after my last hill interval - it was a perfect evening with a near cloudless sky:

 Yesterday was a big training day, consisting of a 152km ride and 30min t-run, which turned out to be about a 5hr20min workout.  Here is some of the nutrition that I brought along (in addition to my bottles of fluids):

Larry again provided me company for 100km of that ride, which was great!  It was a super windy day yesterday, but the sun came out just before I started my workout, and stayed out for the entire ride/run!  I rode out to Morinville (about 20km), where I met Larry, and then we rode the Tour D'Alberta 100km route - which is an awesome route.  Who knew there were all these great roads north of St. Albert?  I'm totally enjoying discovering new roads by bike this year!  We stopped for a bathroom break in Legal (about 70km in for me), which is a cute little French community:

And then we stopped again in Gibbons at the Mac's (about 95km in), where I knocked back a Coke and some peanut butter M&M's, and grabbed a new water into which I threw a Nuun tablet.  Maybe that wasn't the best idea (too much Coke for me?), as I went through a bit of a stomach-ache shortly after that and then around 125km I had some weird major stomach cramping issues that lasted for like 10-15km.  I probably should have also not added the Nuun to the water, and just drank plain water instead.  But it was just a rough patch, as I was able to get through it and make it back home okay and didn't have those kind of problems in the run.  In fact, my entire 30min run felt awesome!  Somehow my legs felt fresh and light and I was able to finish that run feeling strong. 

Which was a bit of a different story from this morning.  It was already 5:30pm yesterday by the time I finished my brick, so I probably didn't leave quite enough recovery time in between that and the long run today, which I started at 10am.  My legs were really fatigued and my quads/hips were quite sore even at the beginning, and worse by the time Kendall and I made it through 2 hours.  And now they're really sore!  I was so tired this afternoon that I had to lie down and have a 30min nap (I rarely nap), with a long swim still on the schedule.  Alice came with me though and we swam 3800m (long course), nothing fast at all - just easy/steady pace.  I am so glad for a recovery day tomorrow (will just do some core/strength), and a drop-down week!  The legs and body definitely need that right now. 

Only 3 weeks to go till race day!