One Month to go

Well, I have one month to get myself ready for the Vineman.  It has not been the year I had hoped for as far as my training went.  The bike shop has been busier than years past, which has kept me off the bike more than I have wanted to be.  I have also had the nagging calf injury that kept me from training at all for almost a month.  I have accepted all of this, and I am not worried about my overall time for the Vineman this year, but I would at least like to finish it again.  So, with this in mind, I hope to dedicate one good month to training.  I feel like I have a pretty solid base just from my years of training, so it is just a matter of getting myself ready for a longer race.  I started yesterday with a 64 mile bike ride over most of the cycling course.  It was my first long ride with aerobars, and I was more comfortable than I had expected to be.  I felt pretty beat up by the end of the ride, but I had put some effort into it.  My heart rate was over 170 for an hour and 20 minutes, it was in my zone for 2 hours, and it was below 130 for 6 minutes.  I don't have an average heart rate on my cycling computer, so I don't know what that was.  Today I plan on going out for a long run around here.  Let's see how that goes.