Week 3/Reach the Beach Race Report

Week 3= ridiculous.  I'm surprised how well I've held up.  Beginning of the week=festivities to say goodbye to a friend, followed by a day of drinking recovery. Ya, so I'm training for an Ironman and I still go out. Who cares? I like to have fun.

Mon 5/14- Wed 5/16: nothing. oops.
Thurs 5/17: 65 min bike (about 15 miles). loosening up the legs before the big 200 mile relay

Fri 5/18-19: REACH THE BEACH! For those of you not familiar with this race....it's a total of 200 miles from Wachusett to Westport Ma. There are two vans, each with 6 people each on a team.  The vans basically play leap frog, but there's always at least one runner out on the rode until we reach the beach.  I was in van 2 with a fun crazy group of girls. So we didn't start until mid afternoon on Friday.  I was leg 8 (2nd in van 2), which totaled 22.4 miles in 3 legs. Last year when I did this i did the least amount of mileage and this year went up to the most. Crazy! My first leg was 7.6 miles (1 hour 4 min), which started with a lot of down hill.  I thought this would be amazing, but half way through my quads were KILLING. Then there was a giant up hill followed by another straight down. My legs were shot completely after that.  We crashed for a bit at one of the girl's house that was close by before heading back into the night for our 2nd leg.  My 2nd was an 8 miler.  Put it short, I liked this one despite tripping over a branch while passing this girl (the only person i passed mind you) and trying to make sure I don't miss the arrows. We all passed out for a few hours either in the van (me) or on the grass in front of a school before the final leg.  We were all hurting by now...and I was sure my legs would kill on my third leg (6.8 miles).  They definitely did but I held 8 45s and even had some beer around mile 4. After my leg, we really cranked up the STOKE...turned up the music.....put our dance moves on and brought home the rest of the girls in the van.  I have to admit, we were totally the popular party van. Call me maybe?
Great job to everyone on our team...totally rocked it.  This race = pain, weird bowels, no sleep, dead legs, but all in all....ridiculously awesome.

lots of singing...and dancing.

so stoked.

putting on a show for the cars.

Sun 5/20: a nice active recovery 2300 swim. I could hardly walk. quads and hammies hurt so good. One great thing...no back pain...no hip pain.. can't say how great that feels. for once.

Weekly TOTAL: 2300 swim, 65 min bike (15 miles), 22.4 mile run (3 hours 15 min)

ok, so bike lacked....but will be biking a lot this upcoming week. recovering swell so far.