Saturday, August 6th 2011

Day 7 of test 1

Swim 4,000 meter:  59.17
transition to the bike about 5 minutes
Bike 40 km:  1:10
transition to the run less than 5 minutes
Run full marathon:  4:31

Comments: 
I had a good swim – and told Mario in the car that I would break 60 minutes.
I negative split the swim, and swam the 2nd 2,000 meters about 1 minute faster than the first 2,000 meters.

The 40 km bike was great and I rode my fastest pace yet this week  – but the truth is I drafted a lot off Mario … he rode slower than usual to ensure I rode at a quicker pace through the strong wind.

I changed as quickly as possible to get into the run as far ahead of Mario as possible.
I havent run a full marathon since ironman France last year — and although today was the last day of the 1st test week and my legs were sore, I wanted to try to break 4 hours.  Mario told me to shoot for 4:30 …

Around the 90 minute mark of the run, Mario literally flew past me … Sasha, Mario’s 13 year old son rode a bike with us as we ran and carried our water bottles, and passed one to me every 30 minutes or so.

At the 2 hour mark, as I was running up the 5km hill … Sasha rode up to me with a 16 ounce bottle of coke.  I drank the entire coke and then kept running.

The run went by ok – the last 30 minutes was tough, my legs were very sore – but I ran the entire way. 
As Mario predicted, I ran nearly 4:30 …. 4:31.  Mario ran 3:45 but I am not sure if this includes the 3-5 minutes he went into a store to get us cokes.

I have the day off tomorrow, and then 6 consecutive days of about 40 hours of training.
My next test week will be the last week of August … and as Mario said today, “the next test is going to be on a whole new level.”