Hitting the WALL-E

On Friday night, Elena had her first test of karate skills in front of all the parents.  The placed was packed with parents and friends watching their kids do various kicks, punches and stances.  Elena did quite well for it being the 2nd week of the class.  She's been practicing every night.  She's also getting used to the camp quite well as she was named student of the week.  She got a certificate.  I'm pretty happy that she's following the rules, listening and not causing problems.  Although I hope she is wasting all this good behavior now and just goes ballistic when she's a teenager.  On Saturday morning they had a sparring tournament with the full karate gear but I wasn't able to go well because I had to get in another big ride.

The weather was predicted to be in the low 90s with a heat index of around 100 so I decided to start my 6 hour ride at 6:30 AM.  It was already high 70s when I started.  I decided to try just gatorade and power gels for this ride's nutrition.  There were already quite a number of cyclists and runners already out when I got to Rock Creek park.  This place is closed to cars on the weekend so it's a nice spot to get some uninterrupted miles.  My legs felt really dead at the start and it was a struggle.

At the halfway point, it started to get cloudy and I was worried that the "afternoon" thunderstorms were going to start mid-morning.  I started pushing to beat the weather back home plus my designed route has the homeward bound leg being a little easier.  The clouds did keep it cooler.  I had miscalculated the number of power gels I needed and proceeded to hit the wall with about 7 miles to go.  I was almost in total bonk mode but I got lucky.  I passed this cyclist and he proceeded to suck my wheel.  After a bit he came around and I was able to latch onto his wheel.  He pulled me quite a ways and then I turned off for home.

The final stats for the ride was 120 miles in 6:10.  This was about 19.3 average.  So overall a perfect workout in preparation for the Ironman.

I jumped into the shower and washed off all the dirt.  Its amazing how much dirt your legs collect when they're constantly wet with sweat from the humidity.  Everything sticks.  I had planned on going to see the new Pixar movie Wall-E with Elena, Amber and Joe.  I got home at 1pm and they called to say they were going to the 2pm showing.

The movie ended up being a romantic comedy.  It was good and Elena liked it.  I'm not sure younger kids would be so happy with it.  It really didn't have much kid humor.  There were parts but not jammed pack.  It was really funny from an adult prospective though as there were subtle things here and there.  The animation was out of this world though.  It was just amazing how far it's come.  Tons of detail and huge backdrops of just stuff.

On Sunday, I ran an hour and 40 minutes to the pool, did an interval workout and then did a 3 mile cooldown run home.  The humidity was just killer.  Being constantly soaked before even getting to the pool was nasty and even caused some chafing issues.  My ankle tendon warmed up and I was feeling okay but my legs were tired from mile 1 from the runs earlier in the week and the slight bonk on Saturday.  The plan was just to go easy so I accomplished that with a paltry 7:30 pace.  I was pretty beat when I got to the pool so that workout suffered as well.

The best thing was getting done by noon.  This allowed me to take a nice nap and watch some DVDs without pushing up against bedtime.

1 month 25 days...