Packing in progress

The big day is almost here! For the longest time it seemed forever away. Now it's getting real. Really real.

Tuesday was a mostly easy bike with some harder bits. Back in an hour, it was ok. Then out for a run that was a bit of a fright. My legs didn't mind moving a little bit, but they weren't having any of the faster intervals on the schedule. What's more, they were in collusion with my lungs. So picture this. There I am at a very slow run, even by my lax standards. My heart rate is about where I expected it to be, but my breathing was going like there was no tomorrow. When I boosted, or tried to boost the speed, my breathing went way up, as if I was running sprints. Even after a full warmup, my legs weren't having any of going fast. As near as I can figure it, my lungs were going as if my heart rate was 20 bpm faster. Very odd. But I'm not going to sweat it. I called it at half an hour. I've had good runs recently, and I have confidence the run will be there when I need it.

Today I slept in. Late morning I was out for a 90 minute bike, with 90 seconds HARD, and lots of time easy spin to recover. I did 6 of these on 6 minutes. At first my legs were wondering what was going on, since they felt a bit stiff and tired. But they came around and we had a good ride. Pushed really hard on a couple of them, and got my heart rate up to mid to high130's for 3 of them, mid 140's for 2 of them, and once above 150. Easy spin back.

Packing stuff up for the trip. Here's a photo showing progress so far.