Today was the Big Frog 65 up in the beautiful Cherokee National Forest. Conditions were absolutely perfect...55 degrees at the start at 7 am, and maybe 80 or so when I finished. My goal for the event was to not race anyone else other than myself. I had done a few pre-rides of portions of the course, so I knew approximately how long it would take me to ride each section while keeping my heartrate below 165. My goal was to finish in 6:15 or less, which I knew was doable as long as I kept my heartrate pretty steady and above 150 on all the climbs.
I ended up finishing in 6:05 so I was thrilled. It was good for 5th place and only 15 minutes out of first, and I had the pleasure of not having to work nearly as hard!
Avg HR 151
Max HR 168...I wish EVERY race was like that! How great it is to NOT be red-lined in a long race. The only time I felt sluggish was for about 30 minutes when I was getting the sloshy stomach from all the fluids I was drinking. A PB&J at the feed station solved that problem and I was able to finish reasonably strong thanks to some Vanilla Coke, which I substituted for my Perpetuem.
Some pics..I hope none of the race photographers got any side-view shots, as my belly was looking pretty large in my tight jersey!
A huge congrats to Carey, who absolutely CRUSHED the 100 miler women's field with an amazing time of 8:06! She was absolutely flying!
EDIT: Oh, and that fancy new Thermarest gets four thumbs up! Chris was nice/smart enough to let me sleep on it and it was heavenly! I didn't wake up with any sore body parts. He, on the other hand, woke up with a sore hand/arm from sleeping on it funny. I'm thinking we're going to have to pick up a second one before we go camping over Memorial Day weekend.
2 comments:
I am glad you enjoyed your race ... on a different level and that BOTH of you are o.k. Enjoy the feelings you had yesterday because soon enough you will be red-lining it again!
Lisa, you are a complete rockstar! I can't believe you did that AND podiumed :)
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