"If you feel the need to vomit…consider vomiting"

<—Survivors – me with Kamal and Laura after Sunday's workout. Kamal looks rested and refreshed because he didn't do the Triple Brick, and Laura and I did!

So on Sunday we did the Triple Brick. What’s that? Oh, a 2 hour bike ride, followed by a 50 minute run. Times three. Yes, that’s an 8 1/2 hour workout, or longer than most people’s workdays (myself included). I picked up Heather at 6:30 a.m. and we got home at 8:00 p.m. What better way to spend a Sunday!

Part of an email from Wayne ought to sum it up:
“On a similar note, if you are on course and feel the need to vomit, and it is NOT related to a dehydrated state, then consider vomiting.”

Uhh, right. Hopefully I will never need to heed these words of advice.

It was supposed to be 106 in Danville, but we were “lucky” and it was only 98. (However, I could feel the skin on my arms burning, so I’ll venture to say that the ambient temp was at least 106!)

The Triple Brick was not as scary as I remembered it from 2004. I think this is for a variety of reasons: 1) insanity 2) old age 3) I’d lived through it once before 4) insanity and 5) awesome bike. Only about 20 of us on the team are doing IM USA or IM Austria (everyone else is doing Canada) so the Canada peeps rode up Mt. Diablo while we did the brick. They’ll do their triple on July 31, a week after we’re done. I’ll be there cheering them on with my other USA teammates – drinking cold beer and eating apple fritters in the shade.

I was very lucky and had a great day – I didn’t think I would feel as good as I did in the heat. I think in large part due to my new strategy of pushing 10 endurolytes (400 mg of sodium) an hour on the bike. As long as I don’t have a heart attack, this should be ok! Like some others on the team, I did have some trouble breathing near the end, but I think this is due to both the asthma the bitchy doctor at UCSF thinks I don’t have (I’d gladly have breathed into her freaking measuring tube after 7 hours of exercise), and the stagnant air/smog. Fortunately the inhaler worked its magic.

This is the longest and hardest workout we do – much more challenging than Ironman itself, since we go into it tired, whereas for Ironman we’ll be rested and raring to go. One more weak of peak training, including a 105 mile ride next Saturday, and then TAPER BEGINS! WOOOOO! The end is in sight, and I can’t wait.

By the time everyone finished and we’d changed into dry clothes and eaten, it was late. As soon as I got home I took a 21 pound ice bath (sooo painful, but made Monday bearable) and promptly passed out.

Totals for day:
Exercise: 8:21 (Heather and I rode 10 minutes faster on the second bike loop)
Water: 275 ounces (yes….more than TWO GALLONS)
Endurolytes: 75 (3,000 mg of sodium!!)
Calories: 1200 – Perpetuem, Hammer Gel, and Wheat Thins
Puking: 0