No April Fools...

Last night was a relatively late one, I even ran out of beer and started drinking liqueur, I didn't realize how good Tia Maria is. It's my new favourite, move over Baileys.

I knew it was a good night when I woke up with my clothes still on and was surprised to wake up a 9 am. Last night I decided not to go to work today and to train, ideally doing my long bike and brick run. I thought it would be great to get that out of the way so I don't eat up a Saturday. Instead I could spend it relaxing and drinking after I do my long run. I basically moved everything up a day.

First thing I did was pop an Advil, I wasn't hungover, I was still a little drunk and I figured the Advil would help with a delayed hangover. I was also sweating, bad. It was drinking down my face from exerting myself by standing.

I knew this was going to be a wet ride. The same thing happened to me in Lake Placid, heavy night of drinking, a VERY sweaty ride.

It took a while to get out the door, I wanted to get out by 11 am, I planned on doing a 7 hour ride and 30 minute brick afterwards. Then I got caught on twitter and procrastination kicked in, then I put a picture of Jamie's new American Express Black Card Online (not all the numbers were there), he freaked (makes sense - I wasn't thinking - brain dead) and then I had to spend some time figuring out how to delete the picture.

By the time I was ready to ride it was 1 pm. That meant I'd be finishing the ride in the dark, which happened. As I started the ride, I was right, I was sweating like a fireman's hose putting out a fire and was thinking I'm going to be chilled for this whole ride.

Just as I started riding, the phone rang, it was Al. I had sent him an email about my brothers business closing earlier next week, the bank was filing the court papers. Al works for the business and owns part of it. It was some serious stuff to talk about.

I couldn't stop riding so I positioned the iPhone in my balaclava and helmet strap. I could her him through my ear phones and then talked into the phone. It was the equivalent of a poor man's wireless. It worked pretty good and Al enjoyed my huffing and puffing sound. He said to me, "You sound like me while I'm having sex", I said to him, "This is what I sound like before sex". He got a good laugh.

I ended up speaking to Al a couple times during the ride. It was kind of cool, I don't mind talking on the bike, especially if it eats up time and makes the time go by faster. The heart rate was definitely up on this ride.

The temperature wasn't too bad, I think it got to 5C in the afternoon and was down to about -1 C at the end of the ride. I didn't stop, other than with 1 hour to go to pick up a sandwich at a local gas station. I can't remember the last time I've eaten a white wonder bread sandwich. I also picked up some Gatorade and Apple Juice. I find apple juice to be one of the best sports and energy drinks ever, I always get a blast from it, I think it's better than a gel.

During the ride I took pictures and tweeted. I got an email from Jamie about 2 hours in where he wanted to know if I wanted to go to the Tin Cup for beers. I really did, I was temped, but couldn't, I had to keep riding. With 35 days until IMSG, I need to make sure I'm ready to show up and not suffer too much.

I was mentally strong the entire ride. I had no moments of "why am I doing this, when will it end?". In fact, although I wasn't riding fast, it was the fastest I could go with the heart rate under 143, my legs or heart light didn't feel stressed. Even near the end of the ride, it felt like a 90 minute ride, effortless, I was even looking forward to my 30 minute brick run.

I love brick runs, there is something about getting off the bike and running with fatigued legs that I love. In the early days it was painful, now I just love it. It normally takes about 500 meters to a 1 km to feel normal, today it was under 50 meters and coming off the bike with a 90 rpm cadence the running legs were turning over fast at around 9 rpm.

It was a fast run, surprisingly, I averaged a 4:52 pace. It felt exactly like my awesome feeling run in Lake Placid, I was floating. My iPhone battery was near dead when I got home so I took Reid's ipod, he has some great music on that thing. It was kind of cool running and listening to his song choices, it felt like I was getting an insight into his world.

Last night started coming back to me training today. Specifically the advice I was giving Reid. I think it had to do with "you're lucky you have us for parents and you're having a great childhood and that other parents are too strict". I think that's what I was saying.

Reid was also telling us that he's Ferris Bueller at school. I believe it, that was me too when I went to school. That's kind of cool, like father like son, with his mothers wisdom and patient perspective. Ok, maybe it's not like father, like son.

I told Reid not to worry, telling it on Face book is a sign he's not that serious and more importantly he now has a girlfriend, which is not something he's used to, and it getting it regularly. I told Reid that when an 18 year old that is not a ladies man is getting pumped by a girl regularly, the last thing he's going to do is kill himself.

When I got home I thought I'd go downstairs to the Pig and Whistle for beers, I couldn't I started getting tired. Not sore, tired. I showered, spent about 10 minutes putting on my compression tights and relaxed and ended up going to bed at 11:30 while listening to my hypnosis tape. I think I fell asleep during the tape, it ended quickly and then the guy brought me out of it. If I didn't fall asleep, then it was cool to have it fly by fast and get into the subconscious.

Tomorrow the plan is to get up early and run 3 hours.

Long Bike - 7:13.08 / 194.28 km / 26.92 avg speed / 130 avg hr
Brick Run - 30:04 / 6.05 km / 4:52 avg pace

P.S. If John Barclay is reading this, we are not going out to Ruth's tonight, next week. Also, forgot to add Paul Dietrich orignally to the knights of the Pig & Whistle bar, welcome back Paul.