A Windy day, but I got to 713 miles...

I woke up almost every hour on the hour last night. I was anxious to get up early and do my long ride. It's my last long ride before I start a two week taper program tomorrow. Then, I start a month of active rest after that. Which means my next long ride won't be until mid December. I was also excited because I knew it was going to put me over the 700 miles of training for the month, which would be a new October record.

I took my time to get ready and puttered around for a couple of hours. Before I left, I pumped my tires and my rear tire stem got a leak, so I had to change the tire. Rather than get upset, I decided to use it as a challenge. I pretended I was in a race and ended up changing it in just over 6 minutes. I also figured it was a good omen, it reduces the odds that I'll get another flat soon. However, for the year, I think that was my 10th flat.

It was one WINDY ride. Winds were 47 kph and gusting up to 68 kph. For the first time ever, and it happened twice, I almost got blown off the road. I was in the aero position and had to fight as hard as I could and sit up to stop from going into the ditch. Into the wind, on slight uphills I was going 10 kph and on one downhill it was only 28 kph. It should have been in the 40's. It was a push hard on the pedals ride. On one long stretch, all the for sale signs were just blowing near horizontal.

At the turnaround point, I was only at a 25.4 kph average. I can't ever remember riding that slow, but I didn't care, I was just enjoying my last long ride of the season. When I turned around, it felt so cool to cruise at 44 - 48 kph on the flats with no effort. About 2/3 into the ride my legs were getting fatigued from 2 hours of pushing into the wind. I just kept telling myself that it's better to pay the price during training rather than racing.

When I pulled into my driveway, my legs were not looking forward to the brick run. The key is not to think about it and just do it, which is what I did. About 5 minutes into the run my legs started to feel strong and I was surprised how fast I was going with little effort. The only unfortunate thing that happened today was that I lost a pair of heavier winter gloves on my ride. They fell out of the back of my jersey. Then on the run I lost my Timex iTouch that allows me to change songs and adjust volume on my iPhone from my watch. Today was an expensive session.

I ended up training enough to get me to 713 miles for the month. A good sign considering my favourite number is 13 and I'm in the 13th wave in Clearwater and if you look through my October training mileage, there is a lot of Thirteens throughout. Plus, it's only 13 days till Clearwater. I like it. Also, there is a great blog post to read from Johan Stemmet about "10 lessons from Kona". How can you tell he's a competitor?

Oh yeah, I decided to extend living the life of a monk until November 21st, which is my birthday. Last night I decided to throw a small birthday party and post Clearwater celebration for myself and invited my tri-buddies. Some I haven't even met yet, but read my blog.

Long Bike - 3:15:10 / 92.98 km / 28.5 kph / 121 avg hr / 2846 ft climbing

Brick Run - 30:24 / 3.69 miles / 8:14 pace / 141 avg hr

Transition - 3:57

October Monthly Totals

Swim - 13.14 miles / 21.19 km

Bike - 566.36 miles / 913.48 km

Run - 134.09 miles / 216.17 km

Weights - 5 sessions

Monthly Total - 713.59 miles / 1150.95 km

Calories burnt - 52,264

Weight 183.4 BMI 21.6 %

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