The Balls Are The Bomb!

It finally got hot in Hawaii! I swear we've had such cool weather this winter and I have just been waiting for it to feel hot. Got that today. I do think we have to double our water intake on long workouts when it goes from 73 to 83 degrees. I am sitting here feeling like I am radiating heat after a 4+ hour brick. Yes. I said BRICK. :)

So I rode by myself today... had some power goals I wanted to hit for long intervals and those don't involve drafting... My typical ride along the coast. I get to look at the ocean pretty much the whole way.

It was a fairly flat 75 miles today and my goal was no big efforts but no real easy riding either... Interesting how much harder it becomes to hold power after you've been doing it for an hour+ with no real coasting or relaxing. This was good race prep today because I hardly coasted at all. Aero bars all the way baby.

If you know how to read these graphs you can see that I totally started DYING like 3/4 of the way through... strong headwind, shitty roads... I was just over it and swearing at myself (out loud). It was bad. I stopped at a beach park to fill my bottle and regroup. I took a powergel and had a nice little chat with myself then got back on it and hit another 30' interval which was my strongest of the day. Powergels really do give you power!

Anyway, ready for the best part? Afterward I ran 3 miles! Yep. I just had a sneaky suspicion that I would be able to run today... and I was right! I've been diligent about rehab not only on my calf but on my foot and my hamstring and my glute and my IT band and my quad... and not just the left side but the right side too. Basically I just assumed that every muscle from my belly button down was screwed up somehow so worked them all and ta dah! My calf is not screaming at me today. I credit these sadistic little balls- the little wooden one is a game piece to one of Moana's toys and if you're a triathlete you're likely familiar with the striped one.

I don't think I'm totally out of the woods yet with this injury thing but I'm confident that I am headed in the right direction... Amazing what a little 3 mile run can do for one's mood though.