Week 4 of HIM Training Recap & Katy Century Ride

This was the first recovery week of the 20-Week Matt Fitzgerald Half Ironman Training Plan and here are the totals:

Swim - 3 Workouts - 3hrs 55mins -  8200 yards
Bike  - 3 Workouts - 6hrs 04mins -  116.75 miles
Run   - 4 Workouts - 2hrs 05mins -  14.03 miles
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            Totals - 12 hours 04 minutes

I know those numbers are a little higher than a normal recovery week but I did take it pretty easy except for the weekend.  On Saturday I went on a group ride with a bunch of people from my Master's Swim club. It was only 22 miles but the pace was fast and then a few of us did a short 2.14 mile run to complete the Brick workout.

And today was the Katy Flatlands Century Ride.  It was already 80 degrees (topped out at 97) at 6am and the humidity was at 90% so I loaded up on EFS Liquid Shots and the S! Sodium Caps (ended up taking 12 of these). There was at least 2000 cyclists on this ride and you could choose from a number of different distances - 24,40,62,84, and 100.  I was in the fourth or fifth flight and it was extremely crowded for the first 10-15 miles or so.  After that it started to space out and was much more comfortable.  My plan was to try and not draft too much and I did an okay job of this.  But as you can imagine with that many riders and huge peletons you sometimes just got sucked into them - which I did not mind all that much when I needed a little rest (-:

The ride was going pretty well.  For the first 50 miles I averaged 20.6 MPH and then around mile 55 I started to have trouble with my right cleat.  It kept slipping off the pedal and would then unclip and each time it tweaked my knee - not good times!  It did this 4 times so I pulled into the rest stop at mile 60 and luckily found the SAG vehicle. I gave the tech guy my right shoe and he said it was pretty jacked up.  I kicked off my other shoe and went over and refilled my bottles and ate a banana and some Oreo's.  I also took this moment to wring out the sweat from my headband and jersey - you could have filled a five gallon bucket with the sweat!  I went back and got my shoe and the tech told me it needed replaced but he tweaked it and should be good for the rest of the ride.

So I took off and within 5 minutes the cleat slipped off again and then again.  Needless to say this was not fun.   Well, about 2 miles later (mile 65) the split came and you either went left for the 100 miles or right for the 84 miles.  With the pain-in-the-ass cleat it was a no brainer to cut it short and take the 84 mile route.  I was a little bummed because I really wanted to complete the century and I was still feeling pretty strong but these things happen and at least I didn't discover the cleat problem during an actual race.  Think I might just get new Tri Specific shoes?

Oh, the best part is that the last 20 miles of the ride the cleat didn't misfire once - had to laugh at this!

The main positive take-away for me was that despite the extreme heat I had an excellent ride.  My average over the 84 mile course was 19.4 MPH and the last 10 miles I averaged over 20 MPH and my legs felt great at the end of the ride.  Six months ago I would have struggled to average over 17.5 MPH over this distance so all the hard work is paying off!

This coming week is back to the grindstone.  The plan calls for about a 15 hour week of training and then next week I have an actual Sprint Tri - can't wait  Here is the Week 5 Schedule:

Thanks for Reading and have a great week,

Jeff