Punched it in the Face!!

Oh, Sunday. You thought you had one on me with that Brick we had scheduled, didn't you? Who's laughing now?!

All I have to say is - four laps of the park with an average pace of 18mph.

The bike was fantastic. I felt strong, I tackled some hills with killer vigor, I maintained my speed as much as possible (lower loop is always tricky and requires slower speeds due to high pedestrian/pedicab/horse traffic) and I even had a cyclist compliment me on my zoominess.

I basically paced with two guys who were each riding the full loop. I'd lose them on occasion, and pass them on occasion, but we were never far from each other. One guy, after I zipped past him for the second time coming up to Lasker Hill (Harlem Hill?) kept up with me about two lengths back. I took the great hill by storm and never dropped below 12mph on that particular climb, then I stood up and powered over the first crest into the rollers and felt the wind on my face all the way down the west side of the park. When I got to the top of the lower loop, he rode up next to me and asked if I was training for a race (Triathlon, I said) and said, enthusiastically, that he was really having trouble keeping up with me. "You're really fast!"

This made me happy.

I finished out the last two laps very well and though I was starting to get pretty tired on the last lap, I kept my speed up and tried to make up for the lower uphill speed by powering through the flatlands.

I transitioned in 48 seconds.

The run was a bit more rocky than I would have liked, but it was also a fairly difficult set. I let myself warm up for 5 minutes, which I've decided equates to five minutes of manually overriding the body and forcing your legs to move the way you want. After that brief spell, I began ten sets of 2min at Z4 (roughly 8:30/8") and 1min at Z2 (roughly 10:30). The first mile wasn't bad. The second mile was pretty good. The third mile I became pretty tired. The fourth mile I couldn't force my body to run faster than 9". I did get some speed added to my chart with a long downhill section, during which I let gravity do most of the work and I just moved my feet.

I feel like I might have had more "go" left if I had eaten more sustainable food closer to my workout. I ate breakfast too early, and though I had nutrition immediately before my bike and then again before my run, and I juiced up with regular vitamin water during the bike, I felt a little bonky. I will do better next time.

Yay me!