Monster training day! ... and I forgot my Garmin.

The interior of my car or an exploded gym locker? You decide.

I had the biggest training day of my life yesterday, and overall I ended feeling good, strong, and confident.

But of course I was halfway to the park when I realized my Garmin was still charging in the kitchen. Noooooo!

Not a HUGE deal, as I know that across the lake and back is about 0.85 miles, and each lap of the park is just more than 12 miles. I did decide to download Strava and try it out for my bike ride, and I got a kick out of the personal bests it gives you for each of the hills and stretches. I'll likely continue to use Strava on my bike rides just for fun.

For the run, I just ran for an hour per the stopwatch feature on the ghetto, first-generation Nano I still use. I was feeling pretty slow after biking so long, so we'll call them 6, 10-minute miles.

The real star of this monster training day were my tri shorts. I didn't think they would be able to hold up to 60 miles on the bike and a 1-hour run, but they felt fine. I didn't need the bike shorts I had left in my car just in case. I just have to remember to keep them pulled down as far as possible on my leg, as they have a tendency to ride up, and then the bike nose chafes. Ouch.

Here's how my monster day shook out:

Swim: Across the lake and back, about 0.85 miles. I logged this as 33 minutes, about the time I swam it two weeks ago.

Bike: Five laps of the park for about 60 miles, in about 4 hours. Only one idiot driver yelled at me (seriously?), and I practiced eating and drinking, although I'm still scared to get into aero. I HAVE to remember to pre-open my Larabars on race day, because trying to rip them open with my teeth while steering with one hand isn't ideal. I only stopped once, between laps 1 and 2, and only to check the radar after it started sprinkling. It turned out to be a quick, actually refreshing shower and I finished the ride without other weather incidents.

Run: I "transitioned" as quickly as possible at my car -- locked up the bike, changed my shirt, changed my shoes, made a quick bathroom stop -- and headed out to the path to run for an hour. I was feeling rough-ish to start, but picked up some steam about halfway through and was able to finish the hour without a problem. I did walk through "water stops" (my handheld bottle) to try to simulate race day.

I got home on the late side (and was, oddly, not hungry), but overall I'm very pleased with the day and feeling much better about my race coming up.