Monday, August 26, 2013

Running Days!

How good are the running days! :) My last days in Boulder were kind of busy.
Starting with a hike on the Mount Edwards, in five friends we left from Boulder to conquer the mountain at 13.895 fts. We had to start in the early morning, so the day before, we camped on a base 30 minutes away from the beginning.
The camping was super cool. Pio, a Polish guy, save us with a camp fire. Then we added a guitar, a harmonica and the creativity of Sara to compose the song Alaskaaa, from where she comes from.
On the next day we walked around 7 hours to get to the peak and despite we were only walking, it was enough to make the lungs to work faster, as there is not much Oxygen after 10.000 fts height, but very rewarded with the stunning views!
A week later I traveled with another friends to Steamboat, where I raced an olympic distance triathlon at 6.700 fts height. The race was a lot of fun, on a beautiful venue. I leaded the race the whole time, although the Estonian Kristov arrived only 91 seconds behind. I felt amazing while racing, can't remember when was the last time I felt this good. Hips like brand new, instead I felt my knee a bit sore.

Getting back from Steamboat, on the next day I was already at Denver's airport heading to my home-town in Brazil, I stayed for 3 days in Curitiba, before another trip, this time to Brasília where I raced the Ironman 70.3. 

The main goal on this last Sunday was to finish the race with no pain, as I have just recovered from a big injury and I didn't know what to expect. In the last 6 months my volume of running workouts were nothing more than 25k per week, which usually are around a 100k. 
(At least on the pic I am the first, from left to right!! :p)

I swam, rode and started to run feeling great, but when I was already on the second mile I had to stop with strong cramps on my quads. I thought I would not be able to finish, but with a bit of walking, slowly I got back to the race, There were only 5 guys ahead of me, and as I was hoping to hold that position as only 6 athletes would be at the podium.
I was alternating going fast and holding the pace back on an attempt to control my cramps (not craps, as I told once to my good friend Magali lol). But at the end I could not take it easy with those cramps and I had to finish all out, as my friend Guto Antunes was approaching very fast. Another dificulty was the narrow path on the last kilometers, filled with age-groupers being lapped, so I had to scream asking for excuse! I was happy feeling that competition fright where you give all you have trying to go as fast as you can, and nothing else matters!!

Happy with the result, overcome injury and very excited to go back to workouts. Next week I will be continuing the running weeks, heading to Rio de Janeiro to race a Sprint Triathlon at Recreio Beach.
Looking forward to be in Rio!!

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