What a weekend

157miles (253km) over two days.  Sat was Bike 110mi/ Run 8mi and Sun Bike 19mi/ Run 20mi.

Sad to say, but I spent more time with Alan this weekend than my girlfriend!

Sat ride was great, same story as previous, start with hills, then Regents Park, more hills and finally to Richmond Park.  At 5hrs 20mins it was time for a hard effort.  I took off and Alan was nowhere to be seen.  An 18min lap and I was done at the park and heading home.  Off on the run, first 50mins were good and last 10 were tough pushing through dizzy/ light-headedness.  I tried my best to focus for the last 10mins, and duly noted that I need to experiment more with hydration/ calorie in-take to avoid this on race day.

Sun morning, back on the bike for high rpm session which ended at Alan's from which point we ran the canal past Wembley and back, 3hrs.  The first 45mins were a struggle for me, light-headed again, stomach aching, one caffeine gel, 15mins for it to kick in and these issues were sorted.  2hrs 30mins into the run, Alan started to pull away.  I wasn't feeling great and saw no benefit to pushing to stay with him (the program called for moderate to easy effort, nothing hard), so step-by-step I relinquished bits of the path.  When he reached a gap of 400m, a 6th sense kicked in and told me this was too much and adrenaline came out of nowhere.  In a short span of time, my per km time dropped from 5.45 to 4.15, but I wasn't gaining any ground, 'damn, he's doing to me what I did to him yesterday.  I'm not gaining ground, but I certainly can't lose anymore.'  And with that, we finished the last 20mins of a 3hr run at a full out sprint. Proof that training with a partner/ group is beneficial.

Needless to say, I spent the rest of Sunday sleeping.