Breakthrough week

First off, Happy Mother's Day to the wonderful Mother of our beautiful children.

I feel like this past week was a breakthrough week for me. All workouts felt really good and I felt really strong all week.

I'm feeling much better in the water and the Master's swim coach has said I'm looking better in my form.

My nutrition has been going really well. Karen had me start a liquid nutrition plan on the bike instead of the many Cliff Bars I was eating. She, and several others she is coaching for Lake Placid, talked me into trying CarboPro. It's 112 calories per scoop, so you just mix any number of scoops in water to get your needed number of calories. On the Tuesday night bike ride, I had a bottle with 3 scoops CarboPro and stayed with the main pack the whole ride! First time hanging with everyone until the end! Even had the legs for some sprinting at the end with the main group!

On Saturday morning, I completed the Cap2Cap century ride. We rode from Dorey Park in Richmond, VA to Jamestown High School in Jamestown, VA and back. The ride went really well. Rode 102 miles in 5 hours and 6 minutes and felt really good the entire ride. That's an average of almost 20mph! Immediately following the ride we went on a 20 minute t-run that really didn't feel too bad! During the ride, I had 2 bottles with 5 scoops each of CarboPro, with water up front in my AeroDrink. Didn't get dropped from my group or 'bonk' at all! In addition to the CarboPro, I took in half a banana at 50 miles, a Nature's Path Cranberry bar at 75, and 3 Oreo's (gotta have my Oreo's!) with about 12 to go. Just to get in a little solid food.

Now, I have to get used to the fact that while my energy level is good with the CarboPro, my stomach is confused. I'm so used to eating Cliff Bars for a whole ride that I feel empty at times, thinking I'm hungry. May have to stash a single Cliff Bar to nibble on through a long ride.

My running is going really well too. The calves have finally learned to deal with this new running form of mine and stop complaining. No hip or IT band pain at all! Weekly massage therapy is really helping me with that. It doesn't hurt that Dr. Stadler's office has a massage therapist. Since it has been prescribed as part of my rehab, insurance is covering my massages up to Lake Placid! Karen was right, this injury back in March was a blessing in disguise. I was able to get everything straightened out well ahead of the bulk of my training! Let's hope that everything holds together for a couple more months.