One of the key ironman workouts, which I got from the CSUcoach Derrick last year who was training for Ironman Germany, is called "big day training". To give credit where credit is due I think this was formalized by Gordo but I suspect that guys were doing stuff like this back in the 80s when the sport was starting out.

Anyway, the idea is to do long (but easy paced) workouts in all 3 sports in the same day just to get the body used to working out and taking in food all day long. So for me this past Saturday, I went to masters swimming in the morning, and lucky for me, we have a former olympic backstroke swimmer in our group (not that I am in anywhere near the same lane...my swim still sucks compared to high school girls let alone olympians) that has some sort of relationship with Nike. Anyway, she ended up having a few dozen of their latest and greatest competition jammers to give away since there was a slight printing error. So I got my hands on one of those and I have to say it felt pretty good to do the workout, but I think I will save that for pool races/time trials since it only lasts for 5-10 uses!


After the swim I got home, made some french toast and took a short nap before heading out on the bike. The ride was loop headig south through Loveland, where the tailwind I had been enjoying abruptly did a 180 and was in my face for the next 15 miles south to Lyons. As luck would have I met up with a Rio Grande (local cycling team) rider. After passing him while he was warming up, he started a tempo ride and I did what I could to sit on his wheel for the next 5 miles or so. This wasn't too hard except where we hit hills and I had to work a little harder than I had wanted to at that point in the ride to keep up, but it was worth it to keep out of that headwind! Once we split up I made my way through Lyons and up the St. Vrain canyon. I had never done this ride before and I have to say that this is probably the most majestic of all the canyon climbs I have done out here. 12 miles and 2600 ft of elevation gain on a smooth paved road with a wide shoulder, nothing super steep, and the towers of rock at the beginning look like something out of Lord of the Rings. At the top there was a clear view of Mt. Meeker only a few miles away:



I wasn't done at the top though since I had to make my way back north to Estes Park, where I topped out a little above 9000 ft right in front of Long's peak. There was a little bit of headwind to make this section annoying, but nothing too bad considering how windy it can be up there. After descending through Estes and dodging a few elk in the process, I took the scenic route through Glen Haven home for the sole purpose of picking up one of their famous cinnamon rolls. Unfortunateley for me I got there too late and they were sold out for the day, so I had to make do with a rather tasteless blueberry muffin. The descent down the Big Thompson Canyon was pretty quick although I made another stop for a mountain dew, which, in addition to 2 waterbottles and a camelback was enough fluid to get me home without too much dehydration, despite a headwind that knocked me down to 14mph coming back from Loveland.

Once I got home it was almost 7 so I had a banana and some coke which is probably the perfect combination of calories, electrolytes, and simple sugars to have enough for a 7 mile run. My legs felt pretty beat from the bike ride, especially considering all the climbing, but felt pretty good after the first mile and I kept a good pace without too much effort, so that's a huge confidence boost heading into the race to know that I can keept going for 8 hours in a day.

Now, even though I ate quite a bit after the swim, during the bike, and before the run, I still had something like a 5000 calorie deficit to make up so I headed over the Cici's with Leigh and my friend Chris from the CSU team to attempt to replenish as much as possible. Being an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet for $5, Cici's may be the cheapest way to replace those calories too. Well I suppose I could cook 8 ramen packets for a little less but even pizza has better nutritional content than that.