I went out yesterday with Courtney on my new favorite ride down to the Casino and back. Why is it my new favorite ride? Well, because it has a bit every everything in 26 miles: a long grind - about 6-7 miles up from the valley into the foothills, short intense climbs, some decent time-trialing stretches, and if you want, you can make it longer and extend the long grindy climb part. It goes along a wide boulevard with wide, clean shoulders so my paranoia doesn't spike. But, in case I do, I can always jump over onto a paved bike path. Lastly, it starts and ends at my favorite place in the world: my house.
My goals for IM-UTE simple: finish, maybe a little faster than I did before. According to this calendar, sunrise on that day is 6:40 and sunset is at 8:22. I'll be finishing in the dark. I'm not sure what "none" means with respect to moonrise. Maybe it rises while it's still light out, or something.
I plan to work at getting better and faster at this ride, then start doing it twice per ride. I can also head out from this ride and do another good ride out 313 north to the San Felipe Pueblo. I finally got my Garmin installed into the laptop that Baboo bought me for my birthday, so here's the profile for the training ride:
All of this is a no-excuses chance to work on my weakness over the next 12 months: cycling. My goal at IM UTE would be to maybe average 15 mph over the course. To do this, I'll have to work on climbing, particularly extended climbs.
For running, I'm going to work on doing one flat pavement run, about a
10K, once a week, for now. Here's the profile. It's the first and last 3 miles of the ride that I do, except that instead of being on the boulevard I'm on a paved running path. I'll be slowly working my way up to a marathon-length run on pavement. This route gives me refueling opportunities along the way. I can get in a marathon distance easily by going out and back. So, that's my long run. All my shorter runs will be on dirt paths.
My midpoint goal is Ironman 70.3 Buffalo Springs Lake, near Lubbuck, Texas. It's hot and there's some climbs, so I'll be doing one training run after work and one ride after work each week, acclimating myself to riding and running in the heat.
Tuesday, I go to see the endocrinologist. I wonder what kind of doctor he'll be - will he say something like, "you need to scale back on your goals, they're too much for you." Or, will he be the kind to say, "Let's see how we can make sure you get to your goals."? Although I'm trying to be conservative in my hopes and dreams, I'm just hoping to have enough energy again to tackle the training I'll need to lose some of this weight. I can lose my own weight; I just need the energy to do it.
I'm also considering consulting a professional, degreed and certified nutritionist, as well. I'm now a hypothyroid-vegetarian-perimenopausal-triathlete-endurance runner. It's getting complicated.
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