Epic Day #2 recap

I know it's been a while since Epic Day #2, but this is the first day I actually don't feel shelled and like my legs are sore to the bone...better late than never.

Epic Day #2 started off in the usual style, being late for the start... I caught traffic on the way to Canandaigua and hadn't packed the night before so I was a little hurried that Sunday morning making sure I had everything with me as I wasn't going to be seeing Rochester again until it was night time.

I arrived to Kershaw at the usual meeting spot about 15 minutes late for the 9am kickoff and saw T$ and Darren sitting on the back of their cars waiting for my slow ass. We suited up and entered the water and JUST as we were ready to push off and start swimming, a lifeguard zipped by in a golf cart and started yelling at us as we were half swimming away. If the other Travis had put his goggles on faster, we would have made it, but she made us come out and enter thru the change house (which was weird because we were going to swim in the same area anyway) But I guess they wanted to keep tabs on how many people were in the water swimming, just to make sure everyone was safe. So now it's 9:30am and we push off, it's a nice easy swim at an easy heart rate and I did 3 laps for a total time of 63 minutes or so (I'm thinking it was closer to 2.5 miles rather than 3...) and Darren and Travis each did 1-1.5 miles.

I exited the water, stripped out of the wetsuit, got my bike stuff ready and the three of us rolled out after about a 20 minute transition and a stop at the Hess Express to fill up the H2O bottles and a pit stop. I decided it would be fun to put a temporary tattoo of a snake on my right deltoid before we left on the bike. More about that later though. We hit the hills of Canandaigua hard and Darren and Travis kept me in check so I didn't blow up too early for the 110 mile ride. It was a good hot day and the ride was fun, just hilly as hell. Even without Bopple (which I flicked off each time I passed it that day! - "Fuck you Bopple!, I hate you!" ) it was still a very hard route. I definitely used the granny gear on the "tank" to spin up the hills and keep the heart rate in check. (I'm so glad IM Florida has no hills...)

We made a breakfast stop at the Grainery and looked stylish to all the other customers as we sat and ate for about 5 minutes before Travis and I realized we still had our bike helmets on...duh, I guess the heat was getting to us at that point. We finished up the route and saw a Mr. John Hunter blow by us and tell us how slow we were going about 10 miles from Kershaw. Unbeknownst to me he was joining me for the second loop around the lake. Darren and Travis had been pushed enough and held me back well enough so I was quasi fresh for Johns speedy legs. They bailed on the second lap (Darren said something about how this was only his second ride in 2 months...you're a trooper man, thanks!) Darren thought the tattoo of the snake was a worm stuck on my arm as well. I took it off after I got home and realized just how much sun I got that day... I had an un-sunburn. The outline of the snake was not burned, but my whole shoulder was. I had a permanent white S on my shoulder for a few days, it looked good :-p

John and I headed out after I refilled the water bottles and we dropped off Darren and Travis at the parking lot. We rode pretty quick and I was super stoked to have John there to pick his brain about how AWESOMELY he did at Placid last weekend.

We rode and rode and John was doing amazingly well for tackling all these hills (he was beating me up most of them...) We had a stellar ride and I dropped him off at his truck and he was showing me all the pictures he had, and I would be lying thru my teeth if I told you I wasn't envious of him. One, for posting such a stellar time and Two for being done! :) Lucky guy. Well as I stopped my bike at my car, my odometer read "110.00 miles"...weird. It was dead nuts on. Not bad. My legs hurt though.

Anyway, I headed back to the car, and grabbed the Fuel Belt and headed uptown. I just ran uphill and thought about only doing an hour and then realized how dark it was and I ended up cutting the run from 2 hours to 90 minutes. I turned around at Yerkes Road from Kershaw Park and ended up having to go past Kershaw because I wasn't at 90 minutes when I got back to my car (something about running downhill on the way back) I was hurting, but didn't want to be injured and shut it off at 90 minutes having run 11 miles at that point. 8:15 pace...not bad considering my legs were shelled from the hills at that point.

I came home and crashed afterwards, but knew that I only needed to do one more Epic Day in September sometime and that would be the end of Epic (for this year at least...:) ) The days afterwards, I took real easy, and I still am taking it easy. My legs felt sore all the way to my femur, not just topical muscle soreness, my legs were ravaged all the way down to the bone. I can only hope this gives me the strength to perservere on November 4th. We'll see though, John's set the bar REALLY high, so we'll see what happens. Till then, thanks you to everyone who rode, swam and supported me for Epic Day. Cheers.