The quick summary of the first day goes as follows.

Swim: Planned for a roughly 2 mile swim in very warm and clear water. The clear part kind of freaked me out a bit as I am not used to being able to see fish swimming around beneath me or worse... snakes! Yes, i saw a snake while I was swimming. Not the most pleasant of experiences but he was swimming away (I only assume that he was male... I didn't get close enough to check).

The swim went well and I was feeling good until all of a sudden I started getting dizzy and feeling some nausea. Anyone who has been reading for a while knows that this is not a new feeling for me but that I have not had this sensation in a long time. I will start using ear plugs again to help keep from getting this (hopefully that will help). Other then that, the swim went well and I am still feeling pretty good for race day from a stand point of swim finish. That is a pretty amazing thing for me to say considering where I was at the beginning of the season :-)

The Bike: Planned for a 95 mile ride on some extremely rough roads with a lot of climbing. With my injury, i was planning to take today easy on my bike and hope to buy some more time to let it heal by keeping it easy today. This course was actually well suited to that as the first 24 miles or so are only "rolling". They are very rolling but none of the climbs are terribly long or steep. A good training ride with nothing too terrible to push my injury. I figured I would see how things felt but was prepared to turn around because the hills after that point were described as "evil" and I didn't want to get stuck out in those crazy hills with an injury.

So after riding out to the water stop at the base of the big hills, my leg was starting to feel a little aggravated but not too bad at all. The problem was that I was surrounded by coaches who asked my how much it hurt and when and such. The problem was that it didn't hurt too badly and that time and as I answered their questions it really didn't sound too bad. Add to that the need to prove my "toughness" to the coaches and I decided to push on and up the first hill. It didn't take too long to realize how bad an idea this was. The first climb was very steep and I was pushing right at 3-3.5 mph up the hill and putting a great deal of strain on my leg which was starting to hurt more and more. Not good.

A few miles into the hill I told Coach Mike that I was going back and started back to the cabin, still 25 miles of rough road and hills away. The roads were so bad on the way back that I actually plan on checking all of the bolts on my bike tomorrow to make sure nothing has come loose... it was crazy! I really held back on my pacing on the way back to try to keep the stress off of my leg but about 2-3 miles from the end, something gave and it got really bad! I had to ride the last couple of miles in on my 2 lowest gears to keep the pain under control... not the ride I had in mind. I iced it and tried to keep it loose with some light stretching and movement but it was definitely feeling worse then before.

Sunday - the run: Planned 2.5 hour trail run along the edge of the lake. The course was beautiful but pretty hilly and uneven. Obviously my times were very slow on this type of course but overall I felt pretty good about my run. My leg, which was a bit tight in the morning loosened up and actually felt fine on the run (as it normally does - the injury only seems to hit me on the bike). I had a brief bout with nausea at the turnaround and about 1/2 way back but they passed quickly and I was able to keep going. My legs felt pretty good as did my energy. I even managed a pretty good little push at the end once we got off the trails and I was able to open it up a bit down the stretch.

Summary: I learned a lot this weekend. My hydration and nutrition felt pretty good and I felt pretty strong on the recovery for Sunday. If it wasn't for my injury then I think I would have had an absolutely spectacular weekend.