Thursday morning:

Woke-up bright & early this morning while the sun was still shining to get in an easy run & bike before work. I needed once again to hold back during this easy recovery day for my process to hopefully peak on Saturday; the race day…

I ran my normal neighborhood 3 mile loop in 26:05 for a pace time of 8:41 per mile. I kept my average HR in the proper zone at 123bpm with a max HR at about minute 17 of 131bpm. The run felt good as to be expected but 3 miles is just enough to get your body active and before you know it, it’s over!

So I then changed into my cooler weather cycling clothes and loaded up the race-prepped tri-bike into the car to take a short drive to a Park District in our neighborhood which as a walker/runner/bike loop of only 8/10ths of a mile. This is actually perfect for a shake-down ride on the tri-bike to make sure everything is functioning correctly such as; race rims/tires, front and rear derailleur, shifters, etc…I covered 4.8 miles in 16:39 time wise for an average rate of speed of 17.3mph. My average HR was spot-on at 119bpm with a max HR of 139bpm while I was testing the large 56t chainring with the small 11t rear cassette gear. My average cadence was slightly slow as I was attempting to focus on other critical tech stuff at 82rpm with a max cadence of 105rpm while testing my climbing gears…I gotta say everything felt really good while riding the tri-bike…felt like I had a need for speed in a big way ;-)

Tomorrow morning I’ll run another 3 mile warm-up run at a slightly quicker pace then I go visit my Doc Chiropractor for another MAT therapy session geared more about race preparation then mid-day I shall head out to Galena…

b