Last weekend was a monster one because it finished build week 2 of 3, before we do another recovery week.
On Saturday, we met in Long Beach, not too far from where we met last time, but right at the border near Seal Beach. We were scheduled to do a 5 hour ride with a minimum of 75 miles. The route took us from Long Beach heading south on PCH until we hit Viejo St in Laguna. We turned around to Avocado St which was about 6 miles in Newport Beach. We were to continue that 12 mile loop until it was time to head back. For the most part, the ride was pretty flat, with some rollers near the far parts of the loops. What really took up time during our ride were the stop lights inside the loop, and the heavy traffic near the bars/restaurants/shops. The shopping area in Newport didn’t have any bike lanes so things got really narrow at times with really rude drivers. I even had to make some last minute calls and turn to ride on the sidewalks just so I don’t crash into other cars. Even one of my teammates got clipped by a car (she’s ok though). There were some nice ocean views, as seen in the above photo, and weather wasn’t too bad either. I was able to practice my aero position on the flats and pushed with some intervals. My overall time was about 5:34 with a rolling time of 5:14, and surpassed my previous bike milestone of 72 to 84.4! Once I got back to homebase, the day wasn’t over, since we had to do 30 minute run shortly after, which was about 3 miles for a daily total of 87.7.
We were supposed to do an open water swim in Manhattan Beach on Sunday, but our coaches made a late night decision and called it off because of forecasted 5 foot swells and rough waters. Whew! We met at the Manhattan Beach Pier anyway and ran some loops to Redondo Beach. We did a little of the chip trail, then the rest on The Strand, where heading south was pretty fast, but whenever we came back north, we were faced with some pretty nasty headwinds. Twice the effort, same speed… ugh. Some of us ran with Coach Jason, who gave some nice pointers on running technique, especially talking about the technique I’m learning from the book, Chi Running, where there’s a forward lean from the ankles, and a forefoot strike with higher cadence. He got me aware of my technique and I tried to apply it on the run. Overall, I was very happy because the run added to a milestone weekend – it was the furthest I’ve ran without any walk intervals – 17 miles!
So if this 104.7 mile weekend was Build 2, what’s Build 3? Bring it!