A lot has happened in the last two months! Wildflower came and went pretty well. I had some bad cramps from drinking too much of the lake but things went well overall. I broke 8 hours and achieved all the goals I set for myself so I'm thrilled about that. We've been building mileage and adding hill climbing over the last month or so and I'm up to an 80 mile ride. We've been climbing hills like King's Mountain and Tunitas Creek in order to get ready for the hills we're going to find at Ironman Tahoe.
This weekend is a big weekend for me: The team is heading to Lake Tahoe for an around-the-lake ride called America's Best Bike Ride. The ride goes all the way around Lake Tahoe, plus some extra mileage to make it an even century. (100 miles) This will be my first century, plus my first time biking up at Lake Tahoe.
Ironman is all about pacing, especially on the bike, so I'm going to use this weekend to test out a race-day pace based on my power. "Training and Racing with a Power Meter" suggests targeting 68-78% of FTP (Functional Threshold Power) with an Intensity Factor of .70 - .76. I'm not actually planning on running after the ride so I'm going to target the higher end of those ranges. This will be the farthest I've ever ridden so it will be a nice milestone. I hope to finish strong and I'll be collecting a lot of data to see how I perform at altitude.
Fundraising is going well, with over $5,500 raised to help cure blood cancers and provide for patient care. I'm hoping to hit $8,000 and you can track my fundraising and make a donation here: http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/irnmnltt13/bjohnsuovy