I woke up yesterday morning at 4:00am and was greeted by an overcast sky here outside of Phoenix, Arixona. Or at least it appered overcast as the sun was still a good hour and a half from rising. This was the remenants of Hurricane Dean, which had become a low pressure system moving up through Mexico. The air was comfortably cool, probably high 70's with maybe 40% humidity with winds out of the south. I went inside, checked all the radar maps to see what direction the front's were moving. I was hoping that the wind wasn't pushing them towards me. They seemed to be traveling more westerly, so I continued with getting ready for my first 100 mile ride since IMAZ.

We all know how key these long bike sessions are when IM training. They give you the only opportunity to get aerobic for hours on end without all the recovery needs of the long run. This was a key session for me and I didn't want to miss it. Well, the lightning seemed to get worse as the 5:00am rolled around and I needed to mke the call. Looking North/Northwest, the direction I was planning on going, looked more promising and I could even make out breaks in the clouds over the mountains to the east. I was THISCLOSE to calling it and putting on my running shoes but the next thing I know, I'm rolling down the driveway on the Saber.

Now, it's about 5:10am and it's pretty much still night out. Really no ambient light to speak of yet from the sun, but I;m on empty roads with a big bike lane leading me out of town into the desert. No traffic, so I cruise down the middle of the lane trying to look for anything in the road. As I got out into the desert proper heading north, the lighting and improved enough to see that my decision to go, so far, was a good one as the skies above me in in the direction I was headed looked overcast but not threatening. The same can't be said if I looked west or south, where it was pitch black with lightbing flashes dances across the sky. Please stay down there, I thought.

About 12 miles into the ride, I had to start heading west and climby a 12 mile hill with about a 3% grade. It's not too hard, just long and absolutely perfectly straight for the whole 12 miles. It gave me a chance to watch the fireworks down south for a while. I resolved myself that if I managed to get 75% of the ride in wothout rain, I would be lucky. I continued west into North Scottsdale and then headed north gain towards Cavecreek. By now, I had about 1.5 hours in with a nice tail wind pushing me north. I had planned on meeting a friend up here to join be for part of the ride. He had parked his car along the road and left cold water for me to fill up my bottles. My own aid station! Very cool of him. He and his wife are coming to Kona just to watch me race and see the World Championships.

He and I really pushed the pace and it felt great to have company to share what was shaping up as an amazing day. The temperature was maybe 80, which considering it was 110 when I rode on Wed., felt incredible. All the dark skies stayed south and I began to realize I had made a great decision to ride this morning. Conditions were ideal, it was the first time in a long time I had ridden under grey skies! We rode around Carefree and Cave Creek and climbed up to a high point where there is a ranger station to top off our water again. The cool temps were allowing me to ride hard without elevating my hear rate and I knew I had a good one in the works.

Leaving the ranger station, the rest of the ride for me was effectively downhill for almost an hour and a half. I had climbed about 4000 feet to get to this point and now I get to have it all back. Bill turned off to head for home and I began heading south. The southerly wind had completely died out, so where i was expecting a headwind there was nothing. I hunkered down and rode hard, keeping my HR elevated in the high end of my aerobic zone while going back down the 12 mile hill, cruising at 32 mph.

As I approached my driveway, I looked down and stopped the clock on a nice round number of 4:41:00. I had gone 104.7 miles, my average heart rate of 143bpm was right in the middle of my training zone, I had climbed 4120 feet, and I had averaged 22.3 mph. It was one of the best long rides I had ever had and it almost never was. It was a great day to be an Ironman. :)