Phil writes today:
“Two weeks to go and feeling good. “

Last Friday was time to hit the road again on the bike and get a short bike workout in. Headed out early from Paia and went across to Kihie. I hit 40 MPH on the way across and then heading back I realized why, it was very very windy. So I put my head down and kept pedaling until I got to Kahului, going about 10 MPH at times, man that is hard work. A good hour and a half by the time I got back to Paia. Now rest for the day and get in some stretching and recovery time.

Time to plan the weekend for my long run (with a short ride before), and long ride (4.5 hours with a half hour run after), a swim workout and the Slalom Race series at Kanaha on Saturday. I’ll get to swim masters at 7.30am on Saturday and get my swim workout out of the way before the slalom racing, that should be doable. So on Saturday I headed up to Pukalani pool and did my swim workout for an hour, then got in my breakfast while driving down to Kanaha and got ready to go windsurfing. A really windy day at Kanaha. We got in the pro division in the morning and the age group races in the afternoon. I did ok in the morning and won my age group in the afternoon, using a 5.9 and sailing super overpowered most of the time. Windsurfing is definitely easier than training for an ironman.

After a relaxing Saturday afternoon and evening I got up early on Fathers day and started my short ride at 7 am from Paia. Too easy!, down to Kahului and back was just about an hour, which I needed to get in before putting on the shoes and then running to lower Kanaha and back behind the airport. Yep this took 2 hours. I felt great on the run, a good even pace with a little kick in the last few miles to put some burn into the legs.

My wonderful daughter, Madison took me out to the Maui Film Festival on Sunday night in Wailea to see the Lebron James movie. What a great story, mostly about this childhood days with his basketball buddies, how they all stayed together through early prep school and then won the state and National championship as seniors. Very inspiring stuff.

I’m going to have to sleep in on Monday to get in my extra sleep after getting home late. Monday arrives about 8am, got in some work, then headed down to Paia to start my long ride. Oh boy, it looks super windy and rainy today. I started off about 10.30 from Baldwin in the rain with the wind on my back. The rain wasn’t fun, but the wind sure makes you feel good doing 30 MPH on the flat into Kahului. Finally the rain stopped in town and the sun came out as I headed across to Wailea. Still warming up as I headed across but I could feel the strength in my legs today, surprising after my long run yesterday and windsurfing on Saturday. Some nice hills to push up as I got to Wailea, got the heart rate in to zone 3 (140-147). Yep all these super athletes talk about zone 1,2,3 and 4 with heart rate and then a lot of them are into the Watt meters as well on the bike, which I have no idea about at the moment. I use a heart rate monitor for most of my workouts, which keeps me in the right zone.

Time to head over to Maalaea, but first I have to get up that windy hill from Kihie to the lights up South Kihie road. Turned left and heading down into Maalaea I could feel the wind on my back about 35 knots, so I put the hammer down to see how fast I could go, I hit my top speed at 42 MPH, feeling well in control. Not looking forward to the ride back into the wind though.

Got to Lahaina and hit the store for a Coke, so I can get a little kick before I have to battle the winds out of Maalaea again. I could see the spray off the tops of the waves coming through “thousand peaks”, it was WINDY and I could feel it blowing me sides ways at times on the bike, having to focus and keep pedaling to stay in control.

Around the corner at Maalaea, now it was time to “get the head down” and start the punishment back to Kahului into the wind. Not fun, but a good workout, the legs were still feeling strong but burning deep in the muscles. Finally turned the corner out of Dairy Road onto Hana Hwy, this was the home stretch, I was already 4 hours, 15 minutes into the ride. Got back to Baldwin and looked down at my trip meter, 77 miles. 4 hours 36 minutes. No time to rest, “get the shoes on Phil and get out on the road for your transition run”. A little less running this week after the long ride, 30 minutes easy. Done, get in some soft stretching and a shower at the beach. What a windy day, but the legs were feeling good. I think I’m going to make it for 112 miles.