Well, today marks my last “hard” day of training before I head down for the Gulf Coast Triathlon – aka Sufferfest. Word has it that the past two years the heat index has been in excess of 110 degrees. Coming from Minnesota where the average temperature in April is in the 50′s, I’m not going to be acclimated to the heat.

Nevertheless, as is typical for Minnesota springs, we had an psychotic weather day here and the mercury hit in the low 90s. Was it fate that such a day should land on my last hard day of training? It still wasn’t as humid as it will be down in Panama City Beach, but I got a taste of the heat before I head down next week.

The main workout (I’m not counting my swim session this morning) consisted of a 30 mile ride and a 2 mile run. The ride faired ok. Heat generally doesn’t bother me on the bike since there is so much wind (too much wind actually – damn 30+ MPH gusts). I experimented with my salt tablets and those seemed to sit in my stomach just fine. I went through three full bottles of water thinking that was probably too much for the duration of my ride, but as it turns out that was probably just right or perhaps a little to little? I was going to run for 40-50 minutes, but that soon changed after I couldn’t keep my heart rate down after mile two. That’s been pretty typical after my longer rides (30+ miles). Just shuffling my feet at what felt like 10 minute mile pace jacked my heart rate up into the 150 range – definitely not good. So I guess we’ll see what happens. I didn’t feel like I was pushing that hard, but it still doesn’t make me feel great when that pace should generally have my heart rate down in the 120 range.

Could be the heat? Could be that my body still has some fatigue to unload? Could be that I’m just not ready for my race coming up soon? I shouldn’t think the latter. I’ve put in the work. I’ve done the distances all in training before. More importantly, at this point, I’m as ready as I’m going to get. Guess we’ll see what happens in a week and a half!