Best Training Day of the Year-- Failures Included

Today's brick was the BEST training day of the year-- 90 mile ride + 4 mile trail run with Amanda and Pater, some of the most beautiful scenery in the Midwest, and some hard-core education that will be useful come race day.

Every training day is a dress rehearsal for a race day nutrition plan. Since one third of all Ironman athletes suffer nutritional breakdown on race day, getting things right is worth a couple thousand miles of getting things wrong. The athletes who don't finish are rarely under-trained...expect in nutrition.

Mid-Ohio River on the Augusta Ferry 43 miles East of Cincinnati-- breathtaking!

The ferry is free for patriotic cyclists!

My day's nutrion plan failed me in two ways:
1) I didn't have enough dates-- my supplier is out for the season. So, I had to use gas station "food". By trial and error I've discovered my rule of thumb is one date per mile of riding.
2) For about a half hour, I didn't take in enough calories, PERIOD. Regardless of the "purity" of my nutrition source, starvation is the worst poison. My legs lacked punch from about mile 60-70. After two candy bars and a Sprite, I was feeling back to life. They had no real food to speak of. WTF?! Some people believe the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. But if you want to be a good cyclist, you almost have to treat your body like a Mr. Fusion from Back to the Future.

Garbage "food" from gas stations is a delicacy for a starving bonking endurance athlete. You can't be a purist, man. It's a dangerous raw food religion.  1.21 Jiggawatts!!!!

Here's what I had for breakfast, on the ride, and for my recovery drink-- (prior to lunch and dinner).

"You're a vegan-- how do you get your protein?" By paying attention to nutrition and not paying attention to the meat and dairy industry. Cronometer is a FREE download-able program that helps me keep track of my nutrition from day to day.

There's nothing more rapturous after a workout than a creamy glass of summery cantaloupe frappe. Oo DAG!

One cantaloupe yields about one liter of Nati Nectar

Dude! What happened to my organic peaches? They went from rock hard to black plague. Lunch is a bust. Back to bananas and spinach.

BEWARE: TMI (Too much information)
After today's workout I had about 4 BM's over the course of the evening. This was annoying, but nothing abnormal when I'm eating as many calories and as much soluble fiber as I am. Come race day, I'm not afraid of soluble (soft) fiber. Still, with a better date supply and some fresh coconuts and time to juice oranges, I will be eating and drinking considerably much less fiber with my calories when given more time for preparation.

Paula Radcliffe pooped en-route to setting her world record marathon, you poop haters!! I would like to believe that in this case, correlation IS causation. Some people believe anal retention is the root of global violence. I for one will go as far on that band waggon as agreeing that getting folks anally resolved wouldn't hurt with world peace.

Here's Pater working on world peace. The fairy's port-side port-o-john saved Pater from the ill-timed effects of his team's big 3 week colon cleanse. Sounds like just another day in the life of Chris Dwyer, whose entire life has become a colon cleanse.

Quote of the day from Pater: "You know it's bad when you're pissin' dust."