Back on the Course
Thursday I rode the Tri Cities bike course.
Forgot to mention that Olivia is riding the cone of shame!!!!
Not for the first time — I've been out there before — but there's something different about riding a race course when the race is sixteen weeks away and you're actually in the middle of a serious build. It stops being a training ride and starts being something else. You're reading the road differently. Filing things away. Where the wind comes from, where the turns tighten, where the false flats are that don't look like much on paper but add up over 56 miles.
Good weather. Minimal wind. 4.3 hours, 243 TSS, HR averaging 116. The biggest single session of this entire rebuild.
I'm working on spending more time in aero. That's the honest project right now — not just fitness, but position. The aero position is where the bike leg gets won or lost at the 70.3 distance, and it's one of those things that requires its own adaptation separate from cardiovascular fitness. Your body has to get comfortable holding that position for two-plus hours, which means practicing it well before race day rather than discovering on the course that your lower back has opinions.
I'll be back out there in a couple of weeks to do it again.
The week around Thursday was strong across the board. Six training days, 617 TSS, 9.6 hours. Coming off two consecutive light weeks — call and more call — the body responded well to the load. HRV holding steady at 7.4-7.5 on the valid reading days. Weight sitting at 175, unchanged and stable. Sleep was uneven — a 4.2-hour night Tuesday and a 4.6-hour night Friday bookending that big Thursday session — but the body absorbed it without complaint.
What last week's data also showed, now that the rolling file is working properly, is that the "disaster" call week wasn't quite as bad as it felt. HRV was solid every day — 6.8 to 7.7 across six consecutive valid readings. Sleep averaged 7.7 hours. The training was minimal but the body was quietly recovering, which is probably why this week's big load landed so cleanly.
Sixteen weeks to Ironman 70.3 Washington.
The course is starting to live in my head the way it needs to. The fitness is building to match it. Two more course recons between now and September, the aero position getting more comfortable with each one, and the weekly work continuing to stack.
The race is no longer abstract.
Onwards.
Weekly metrics: 6 training days · 9.6 hours · 617 TSS · HRV 7.4-7.5 (valid days) · Avg sleep 6.9 hrs · Avg HR 113.8 · Weight 175Thursday course recon: 243 TSS · 4.3 hours · HR 116 — biggest single session of the rebuildvs. last week: 2 training days · 1.35 hours · 77 TSS