Friday, July 30, 2010

whispers

i remember a scene from the movie Gladiator. it was in the first part of the movie when the main character is still a general. and the old emperor comes and visits after the battle scene. and he says back in the old days the word "Rome" was an idea so fragile that you could only whisper it.

ironman...

Monday, July 26, 2010

Yep

ok - we decided to run an almost or maybe a full ironman on saturday. but it rained and lightninged and such - so we killed the idea. just went to the pool and swam a mile and a half - then dodged some clouds and ran 5 miles. no biggie.

the next morning, sunday we tried again to do the long workout. we woke up at 5 so we could get to the park by 6:30 to get started at 7. which we did. but. sadly the park doesn't open until 8. :-/

so... we went to the gas station and hung out there for a while. ahh well, i guess we could have called or looked it up - but wtf? oh well. and! as a bonus it closed at 10. so rather than going 7 to midnight we ended up with 8:30 to 10...


the transition area for the three of us was also the minivan. the "molester van" as The Resa likes to call it. well, we had to keep all of our stuff in there and open it up each time through. this slowed things down a bit - but worked out really well otherwise.

the three of us decided to stay together for the full day. we were not racing - just trying to learn stuff. and all in all we did learn several things. the only negative is when any one of the 3 of us had a problem - all three of us stopped and waited. bathroom breaks, fixing stuff, whatever... also we went at about 90% intensity for most of the day. all in all i would say the day was one of the funner ones this year.

first off we went down to the lake - which is about a half mile or so from the parking lot. we were the first people there. it was raining pretty good as we drove out to the park... but we checked the radar and it looked like it would clear up after a few hours. which it did. so when we arrived at the pond the rain had gone and it was just overcast. we did the map my run on the pond and three times around is an ironman swim. a distance which i have never done before.

i still haven't found a good fix for the rubbing seem on the wetsuit - i think maybe some kind of repair kit or something to cover it up. it rubs the back of my neck and i get raw there. i bought some larger bandages and had sheila put them on my neck where the suit was scraping. "wont work" she hinted. i then blobbed a bunch of vaseline on the seem too. all in all it pretty much worked. the bandaid came off about half way through, the vaseline seemed to keep the suit from digging too hard into my neck and in the end it was only sore but not painful. i guess i probably could do something about it. ;-)

so we suited up, got our goggles and my new swim hat on and said "3,2,1,go!" and then all stared at each other for a few seconds. finally we shrugged and started swimming. noticed a huge thing in the first 100 feet. my new swim hat echoes! its very loud when you have it over your ears, blurbity blurbity! huge difference from swimming without one. and it also explains the panic i went through in my first race. it was weird and i didnt like it all. so i lifted it above the ears and all was well. so - any beginners out there - think about this next time you try a swim cap. this was about the only two things i tried differently on the swim. the hat was an easy fix and the suit - well, thats going to need to be fixed i think. i also wore a watch for the first time but never looked at it. so wont bother with that again.

along we swam, the three of us. we guessed 1:30 to 1:40 in the water. the first time we swam in that lake the sun was right over head and the water was clearer. you could see fish and stuff on the bottom. this time it was a lot darker as the sun was just coming up - couldnt see anything really - some sand about 3 times is all. we pretty much just swam along. our sighting or maybe direction is better now as we didnt split up much and didnt re-cross our paths either.

we had to change our course a bit to avoid some fisherdudes that showed up. also another set of 2 people got into the lake with wetsuits and started swimming around too. but they were in and out of the water in about 30 minutes. they were fast too. probably doing about a mile or so in distance.

i remember getting very comfy in the water. about half way through a large dark cloud passed right over head. "Tragedy Strikes when Lightning Strikes" was my headline for the next days paper. either that or "Three Retards get Nuked in Lake" but no lightning came down and we managed to make it to the end of the swim.

i felt really good about the swim. new personal distance record and i didnt feel nearly as tired as i usually do after a pool workout. got out of the water at 1:41. in line with what we figured. but out effort was more just swimming rather than trying to go fast. but! i would be very happy with getting out of the water in under 2:20. as that was my biggest worry a year ago. so 1:50 or 1:20 or anything else is just fine. at this point something really bad would have to happen to not finish the swim. cramps? storm? locusts?!?!?

got out of the water and put my shoes on and walked back to the car. we chatted along the way. saw a few other people in wet suits go by. my foot itched a bit but otherwise all good.

the itch turned to pain as i got to the car. a stone was in my shoe and my wet foot rubbed it till it cut the skin. argh! my left foot now had a hole in it. ruined my mood there. gads i was bummed. i was thinking i would be hopping on the run. poop! ahh well, what can you do. so i put a bandaid on it and started switching to the bike. which normally would take a few minutes to put my shoes and shirt on and be all set up. but we hauled out the bikes - having to unload the car to do it, pumped the tires, checked stuff - loaded up with food and water. all in all the transition took about 40 minutes from the lake to the bike start.

once we were finally ready we hopped on the bikes and took off. i had mapped a course that was a loop for 10 miles and an out and back section which was also 10 miles long. the out and back is a big favorite with the triathletes - there were about 50 people on that as we rode it. not too many people together - mostly single riders. a few 2 people teams and the big train of three that was us.

the loop kinda sucked. it was on lumpy roads and had more traffic. but i think it was better than just doing the 10 mile out and back 11 times. so we did a loop, did the out and back and then went to the car. 20.01 miles. our first time around i think we went to hard. just a bit. we were trying to remember not too. but you feel so fresh when you start. and after the first 20 we were feeling like we went 20. the next 20 we for sure went too hard. we did it in just a touch over and hour and were pretty dead by the end of it. felt like we had done 60+ miles at this point. well, we talked about it. all along we have been up against the question of whether to go as hard as we can on the bike, and then walk/trot/walk the marathon or to go easy on the bike and then have to run run the marathon. we are not runners and for a long time we have leaned towards getting as much done on the bike as we could and just suck it up on the shuffle. the other way - we figured, was to go easy on the bike and still be not too good on the run.

after reading some things about this - it seems the general thought is that you can drop 3 miles per hour on your bike and run 10 min miles rather than have the 3 miles per hour and walk 19 min miles. but we were not completely convinced one way or the other. just seems like we would have to do several events each way and see what worked out best.

i think though, after the full day sunday that we are now leaning towards not bombing the bike too much. first off it makes the bike if less adrenaline-ee more comfy. would be nice to not get off the bike and already feel totally gassed. and... well. i will leave that for the end to tell you the reason we really changed our minds.

so the second loop pretty well pushed us too much. towards the end of the 2nd we came upon another set of two riders. some guy and his girlfriend/wife. they were ahead of us by a few hundred feet. we were coming up on the far end of the out and back. the guy kept looked back at us, then chattered to the chick. they would put in a burst and be out ahead a bit. then slowly start coming back. then more talking by the guy and again a bit of a speed increase. we were about a half mile from the end and The Resa was in front. she also noticed all this going on. she turned around and looked at me and put here finger to her lips and then with a big grin crooked her finger and did the 'come here' motion. so we hit the gas. lol - was a lot of fun as the guy panicked when he saw us coming - but it was too late, we ripped by at probably something about 5-7 miles per hour faster as we hit the turn-a-round. Resa couldnt resist and asked him how his ride was going as we went past. the next 3 miles we spent laughing about it. they stopped in the parking lot and we never saw them again. i think they spent the next 12 hours hating each other.

other people we did see several times. a few we saw for 4-5 hours. and not the extreme people either. a lot of the 150 pound 6 foot tall guys pounded out what looked to be 30mph sprints back and forth and were gone in an hour. but some of the most average people were just cruising along like we were... hour after hour... sure makes us smile seeing other people trying to change their life. :-)

but after the second time around we were thinking we would have to back off if we wanted to finish with anything left. the park is not HILLY but it is hilly. not many flat areas - just a bit on the suck loop. at least the wind was pretty mild if still there. so the third of five loops starts and we put a cap on our effort. we decided to back way down to see what would happen. so we rode ( trying to avoid being frustrated ) at a slower pace. now we got passed a lot by people. and we did some chattering - well i did. "On your left!" from behind and i would yell back something like "Oh Great! Now What? You AGAIN??" or "You'll never catch us copper!" or "we will see you in 20 miles fastguy." sure was fun. and NO flats! really weird. must be because we were riding on the road and not the mountain bike trails or something.

third and fourth and fifth laps gets us a touch over 100 miles. felt about the same as after lap 2. which is to say like we were about 60 miles in. the last 12 miles we used to stage water on the trail. so we loaded up a few times and dumped about 10 waters and gatorades out there. sadly it was starting to get late. we decided all along not to run the marathon, just a 10 mile run with a 16 mile walk if we even did that much. we just didnt want to get hurt or have to recover for 3 weeks. so with only a few hours left before the park closed we decided to run out a half marathon. and it wasnt all that hard. we did walk a lot, but we were all three of us surprised how strong we felt. i was eating and drinking on the bike - like we have done the last 3 weeks and felt very strong on the run - even though i felt pretty done on the bike.

so - this is the reason for the slower bikes pace. i think we have improved a ton in the last year. a year ago after a 100+ mile ride it was lights out for the next few days. now we were trotting along at about 30 seconds off of our normal running pace. luckily my sore foot was a non-issue. it only hurt later in the shower.

i did get something nasty going on in my stomach. not sure what it was about - i think though that after the bike i wanted to try some baked potato. so we made up a bunch of them and the plan was to eat some at the start, middle and after the run. and everyone thought they were awesome. but i was starving and so i pretty much ate 5 potatoes all by myself after the bike. i was no longer starving after that. but... gads. lol.

also on the run it started getting dark. whenever it gets withing 2 hours of dark in the summer i grab the bug spray. i sprayed it all over me. then again a second time. sprayed my hat and shoes and ears and butt and everything. sheila and the resa were just watching. but the resa knows i am "The Bug Pied Piper" things from 200 miles away will come just to land on me. i have killed 3 mosquitoes in one smack. its insane and i have no idea why it is, but i attract bugs - nasty ones - like nobody i have EVER met. Resa doesnt even use bug spray. as long as i am around. so we start running the first 6.5 mile lap and sure enough there is a huge trail of bugs flying around behind me. i got to run behind sheila and resa as they cant see very well with me in front. because there are 2 to 3 thousand bugs behind me. after a while we get to our first water and we stop to drink. i smack a few bugs, wave out some from under the hat and generally hop up and down and walk in fast circles while they drink. we start running again and i ask the resa if she sees a horse fly on the back of my head. KA-BAM! my vision goes blurry as a white flash of light explodes in front of my eyes. my ears are ringing and the back of my head is on fire. a horse fly falls to the ground. "got the focker" she notes. she "gets" two more over the next mile. but on the way back i get some revenge on the two girls as the bugs are starting to go to a secondary source of food as it gets darker out. now all three of us are running and hopping and slapping stuff as we get to the car. they load up on bug spray, i re-load 2 more times and we go out for our last 6.5 miles. again i get all the bug attention now that they are protected.

its now monday morning and i feel pretty good. my stomach is still sore - like i got punched or something. so - maybe it was something i ate the night before. not sure. otherwise my legs are dead - but not killer. certainly been more tired from lesser workouts. the worst thing is the bloody sore on my foot from walking back from the pond - thats annoying. :-)


huge and also big things learned:

a - bike like its 150 miles not 50. i think we can have a pretty good run if we stay smart on the bike.

b - dont eat 12 potatoes in 2 minutes.

c - drink more than you think you should. i drank a gallon and peed a cup.

d - we added several more items to our trans bags - things like eyedrops and chapstick. normal things you can grab out of the car but would not be there unless we planned on it.

e - big confidence in the Ironman. now i think it will take something bad to happen to keep up from finishing. we hope to still finish at ANY time. one thing i have learned is each day is different and putting a goal for time has now been tossed in favour of just getting our first ever finish ( as it was when we first decided to do this ). maybe next year ( or in 3 years ) we can go for 14 hours or something fast. 16:59 or bust baby!


SCORES:

mentally: 10 - feel great about stuff. feel like a retard for not fixing my shoe - but thats because we did well in the lake and maybe thats a lesson to stay alert especially when things are going great.

physically: 9 - stomach asploded and i was dehydrated at the end of the run. but felt strong all day long really only hurt the last 30 minutes.

workouts: 10 - had a great hard week. next week is a taper ( then the last 4 to go )

Monday, July 19, 2010

Heavy and Sweaty

so i am slightly heavier on mondays now.

we have been playing over the last month with eating on bike rides. our energy level has gone up tremendously. the first 3 hours or so feel the same. but the next three are completely different. before they used to be a slow grinding death, but now they are about like the first three hours again. the legs feel great. other parts are still going through the slow death thingy. but at least i am not struggling to keep a slower and slower pace going.

on the other side of that coin my weight is higher on monday mornings. now i am not recovering all day monday so furiously. makes for better rides on sunday and then the week rides are a lot more fun too. so all in all this has been our biggest improvement. wish i had known this 20 years ago... ( or even 20 weeks! )

here is my weight over the last few months: once a week on mondays:

March 22, 2010 198
March 29, 2010 194
April 5, 2010 198
April 12, 2010 194
April 19, 2010 194
April 26, 2010 191
May 3, 2010 192
May 10, 2010 192
May 17, 2010 191
May 24, 2010 188
May 31, 2010 190
June 7, 2010 187
June 14, 2010 187
June 21, 2010 186
June 28, 2010 186
July 5, 2010 185
July 12, 2010 187
July 19, 2010 191

my goal all along was 185 and i think i am going to stick to it. going to watch a bit more what i eat from now one in. kinda been leaning towards the paleo diet - which is pretty high in protein.

also noticed something about being sweaty. a year ago i was bigger and more out of shape - not to say i am in shape, but i was worse off a year ago. and when i worked out i would sweat, ( as i still do lol ) but it was different. i would take longer to start sweating. now i am sweating putting air in the tires. then it would take 30 minutes before i got really going. so i think my body is more ready to get rolling now. and! the other side is true too. then i would be sweaty about 3 hours after working out. i remember sitting on the floor under the ceiling fan for about an hour after a long ride. now i bring a change of clothes and am pretty done sweating about 5 minutes after getting off the bike.

just weird stuff, life is.

and! what did we do this week. not all that much weirdly. we followed the book and had a fairly tough book workout. but we didnt add anything to the weekend like we normally do so all in all it was a pretty easy week.

the worst part of the week was the long swim on the weekend. for the third time in my life i did a lake swim. this time the water was pretty nasty and you couldnt see anything in it. just like the first time i did it. but there was no panic. i really think i am okay in lakes now. we just swam back and forth around the lake a bit. two interesting things happened. 1 - my goggles got full of water, as happens every once in a while, and its rather weird getting them re-set in the middle of the lake. ( read about this in chuck's write up ) and he is right, it is a bit weird treading water and fixing them. as you are almost underwater for some of it. you can lay on your back and float pretty well in a wet suit and if there are no waves you can do it that way. or you can kick a bit and just get a little lucky doing it normal. or! you can bring along a Resa and hold onto that as you do it. trouble is, Resas dont like it too much. i am guessing this is something you can practice about ten times and never have another thought about it. kinda like getting into your clip pedals. and, 2 - my neck is all bloody AGAIN. in the same place. this time i lubbed up with a big wad of vasaline before swimming, to glid that part of the wet suit. no luck. about 30 minutes in it was burning. 45 minutes in and i was on the shore looking at the suit. what a pain. turns out a seam at the top is rough, rough enough to have skin in it now. argh. need a fix on this very seriously soon. i can either fix me with maybe a bandaide type patch on my neck - trying this in a few days. or fix the suit with some kinda patch on the seam. but thats our big trouble with swimming right now.

we plan on taking this friday off going up to michigan and running a full-on ironman. or about 80-90% of one. just to check out our stuff a bit on a really long day. obviously we are not going to do that well time wise as the taper is one day but... we would really like a full run at everything. so... unless there is really bad weather ( when we will move it to sunday ) here is the plan:

get in the water about 8 in the morning ( sounds late but our overhead is about 3 hours to get there and set up and ... well, thats going to have to be it. ) once in the water we do three laps of the lake. which is 2.3 - 2.5 miles based on how much we hug the corners.

move over to bikes ( hopefully with a less than 30 minute trans as the lake is about 1/2 mile from the parking lot and the trans is getting stuff out of the locked car. once on the bikes we ride at least 100-112 miles.

switch to running/walking. again a trans - this time pushing bikes and stuff back into the car. also getting re-loaded food and such. on our feet we would like to do about 20 miles. running the first 10 and walking the second. here is where we are wimping - but i am not sure trying to run a high 20 miles would really be good for us. might take a few weeks to recover and we dont want to get totally blasted, just be out there for a long day.

barring wind i would guess:

1:40 swim
0:30 trans
6:30 ride
5:00 run/walk

there is a half ironman this week in michigan and we were thinking of doing that. but its $250 per person and... i dont know we just feel we can do our own longer workout by ourselves.


SCORES!

mentally: 9 - feel a bit lame about the last two weeks and oddly my weight up from doing a good job eating has me thinking i haven't improved. i should not use weight as a measure of fitness. but otherwise the feel very confident and happy. :-)

physically: 9 - fresh and no pains. had a minor foot roll about a week ago, but is better now. all good. arms a bit weak.

workouts: 7 - lamed them up a bit. ahh well. its too hot out to exercise!!! lol


next week should ( i hope ) be a very interesting one on going longer distances. if we feel really good we might just trot out the last 6 miles on the run and say we are ironmen. odds of that are about 10% though!

Monday, July 12, 2010

under 50

well, there are 46 years gone in my life and 46 days till the event. uh... well, i guess thats pretty interesting. hmm... ok.

"Are you hurt or injured?"
"What?"
"Are you hurt or are you injured?"
"What is the difference?"
"Well, if you are injured you cant play anymore and i have to take you out of the game and send you to the showers. If you are hurt, you keep playing."
"Uh, hurt i guess."

we had a harder week, but it went really well. some parts hurt... the weekdays were pretty much the usual, biked 2 hours on tuesday and another 2 on thursday. the run/swim days were again as about usual, with 3 hours wed and just the run friday.

the weekend had us biking a long one on saturday, but first we had to make up the swim. so we swam the drill set and then got out and did the 5 hour bike ride. we rode up towards cleveland and back. we found a new trail called the emerald necklace or something ( kinda sounds like a porn site?? ) well, anyway we rode the emerald. it is a long straightaway ( well, a twisty one ) so a long twistyway between two loops. the top loop is just part of the trail but the lower loop is still kinda in the building phase and you have to ride down some streets and through neighborhoods, hop over fences and ride on rooftops. we got lost about 23 times in this lower loop section. and to do it the next time i think there is not much chance we will pull it off without getting lost again at least 5 times. but we did a lot of backtracking and asking people were we were and in the end almost enjoyed that section. the rest was awesome though. better than the tow path, - well, actually i would say they are both great. the emerald is a bit faster paced. the towpath has more baby strollers and tourists - also it has more dirt sections. so now we have two fun trails. :-)

again we went with another "BIG FOOD" ride. we ate and ate, resa was thinking we *gained* weight on the ride. that watching TV would have been healthier! but boy did we feel great afterwards. again a long ride and i was totally ready to run a long way. felt awesome. so, after the bike we decided to get a walk in. we hiked another 2 hours - which was harder than the bike as the hills were very steep. more like we scrambled 2 hours.

baby got new shoes! and the resa tried out some new bike shoes for the ride. she said they were a big improvement over her old ones. looks like her knees are better too. which had us scared for a few weeks there. she is as strong as ever, if a little more sore than a few months ago.

sunday had us swim 3400 in the pool, longest swim yet, but 4000s are coming. we did it in about 1:20. so thats again on line with our 1:30 triathlon swim. erg, i am so ready to do that swim now. thats the only event we have a pretty good feeling on time. 1:30 - 1:45 seems pretty much what we should get. the bike could be anything from 6:00 to dnf. well, dnf if we wipe out. i would say 6-7:30 is possible. and the run is pretty much going to be i would guess 6:00-7:00 also. getting us home just before we turn into pumpkins! well, after the swim we went on the run. did a half marathon. and pretty slow too! was really hot out again with the 90 degree heat. i think though that i can handle heat but not sun for some lame reason. i would much rather have shady 90 than sunny 80. hmmm following that logic i would bet i would REALLY like shady 65. hmm.... yeah. :-) well, i had a bit of a better run than i was thinking i would. we got the first 10 miles done in about 104 minutes - which is very fast for us. but died on the last three and pretty much walked/trotted it in from there. i think we still need to up our food and water on the run.

also there has been a bit of talk about swimming and running together, which would be fine with us. especially the run, we could help some of you people out maybe - keep the pace up. but i tell you now, and i am as serious as a cat in a microwave, if you cant keep a 16-18min mile pace up we will have to drop you, we cant afford to miss our expected run split of 10 hours... ;-)

SCORES!

mentally: 10 - fixed a lot of stuff in the last 2 weeks, knees, food, bikes stuff - all of which makes me feel better about it all. plus in the really hard weeks now in the heat and we are stronger than a month ago when it was easy.

physically: 9 - almost a ten, i feel a bit weaker on the swim now. i think my arms need a recovery, but the book calls for what i feel is overtraining the swim ( its just your arms - so no biggie ), undertraining the run ( dont get hurt ) and about right on the bike ( the most import leg ). nothing injured.

workouts: 9 - we still have "wandering workouts" that we have to scramble to make up somewhere. but we did them all and did them strong.


one hard week down, two to go!

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

can we ride witchyou?

a while ago we were riding a fairly long ride. we were just cruising along pretty happy when we came up to a group of 3 people. and this has happened several times so its worth writing about. :-)

the going faster than someone else that is. very odd for us.

well, we come up on this small group and the guy in front says "can we ride witchyou?"

we are going probably about 16-17mph... not too fast, just moving along. me and resa just taking turns at the front.

i sigh, but you never know, adding 3 people can really lessen the work at the front. not that we were busting all that hard. but the alternative is to say "no, fock off" and that sounds kinda mean. so i say "sure, we switch every mile." and the guy says "great" and gets in behind the resa. i finish up my mile, call out switch and go to the back behind him. his two friends decided they didnt want to come along.

i hear for the next mile how he wants his friends to be here too. how he normally rides at 30 mph and how its just not his day today. i say "oh" "ah" and "yep" maybe 48 times over the next 3.5 minutes. resa is just holding the same pace we have been at for 3-4 hours. i looked back but this guy's buddies are about a half mile back and i am hoping he goes back to them. finally the mile is up, i call out the switch and the resa comes back behind me with raised eyebrows. i just shrug back to her.

so now its the guys turn, and right away he is clicking through gears. click click click. time to rock!!! and he is going 17,18,19,22,25mph. zooom!

again to be polite we kept up with him for a few of that. at about 19 or so i just lay back down to our normal cruising speed. he bolts out and gets about 40 yards on us. then starts to slow down. we catch up after about 1/4 of a mile. he is totally out of breath and calling for a switch. waves feebly at us as we cruise by. he gets behind the resa after his turn of 1/2 mile and fades away over the next 1/2 mile.

and this happens all the time. i am not sure why people ( newbies mostly ) think that being in the front is so different. that they have to go 100% if they are in the front. usually i call switches on rides and when they go out front i let them go and scream SWITCH as loud as i possible can to them, if they are within a few hundred yards that is. some people just put their head down and are so far gone i usually don't see them again for a few miles. i can picture them out there 10 minutes of sprinting down the road waiting for the call to change... i tell people that i know: "when you go to the front, dont change gears and dont change your peddling."

ok! this week was pretty easy - it was our last recovery week. next starts the hardest part of the training. also the hottest. and i am not good in hot. well, swimming seems fairly heat resistant and biking i think doesn't bother me too much if it is hot. but running! yikes!

we had a good bike on saturday. went about 40 miles after doing a lake swim ( eeek! ) but the swim went great. jumped in and started moving. our pace was medium slow as we just wanted to have a good event. one trip around the lake is 0.8 miles, so 3 trips is the ironman. we did two trips in 60 minutes. again very much in line with our guess of 1:30 in canada. the resa and i both feel we could have improved our pace quite a bit. so maybe knock the 1:30 to 1:15 if it went well, but i am still hoping to just survive the swim. but feel pretty happy about that phase right now. the only negative was that the resa, sheila and i have gotten bloody necks from the velcro patches on the back - all three of us. need to figure that one out. but after the swim we were all pretty happy and rode around the park for the 40 miles. resa's knees acted really well ( the steroids must be on-line finally ). the only real negative was her bike skips badly on the front chainring when she shifts quickly from big to small ring. 3 times we had to get the chain back on, the last time mangled the chain and i had to take a few links out. only had one flat so thats just about a PB on a ride. i think once, back in the 90s we had a ride where neither of us got a flat.

sunday was supposed to be a long 4 hour ride. we got about 40 minutes into it and i was in front. in the shadow of a large tree on the side of the road was a small piece of metal. later the small piece of metal was on the side of the road somewhere. i never saw it. before, during or after i ran over it. but it cut the rear ( of course ) tire and i was flat. i took the tire off, the tube was cut up pretty good and so was the tire itself. i patched the inside of the tire so that the tube wouldnt come through the cut and then put a new tube on.

well, first off i HATE the small pump i got with the new bike. its like the size of a cigar and works about as well pumping up tires. its in the trash now. but, i am sitting there trying to pump up the new tire and i am getting a bit annoyed with it. resa says we should try using the new canister instant inflator. you attach a tube of CO2 and press it to the stem and ta-da! full air. unless you use the mountain bike side canister rather than road bike one. THEN you get like 2x as much air. i think the tire went up to about 190 pounds of air. well, not for very long as the tube forced its way through the patch and exploded. ka-bang! now we have two messed up tubes and a still messed up tire. we have one more tube in the bike bags, but it was not swapped out the day before and so we have 3 wrecked tubes and a tire.

i get out the patch kit and work on fixing the tube but once on it leaks. resa mentions we have a 4th of july party that night and are pretty much out of time. so we decide to scrub the day and do it monday. she rides back to get the car and i sit there on the side of the road. i start walking back, but i know it will be about an hour before she gets back, so i sit down and fiddle with the patch kit a bit more. i finally get one of the 3 tubes patched ( the second one ). now the bike pump is acting up and i cant get any air in the thing. its messed up pretty bad and i am sitting there moping. a guy rides by ( many have ) and asks like most do if i need anything. "yeah, just a pump." so he stops and hands me his pump. its a nice one. in fact i went out that night and bought one myself. really nice little pump and i get the tire about up to 60ish pounds and am thinking maybe we can still do a few hours today. so i pull the pump off the stem. along with the valve and all the air comes out.

the guy is staring at me and the tire. "sorry" he says. ahh well, not at all his fault, my junky pump ruined the stem i think. i say "no-prob" and he asks if i want a tube or more patches or .... well, i am pretty done. so i say, no, i am getting a ride and he waves bye and takes off.

i walked about 10 feet and say screw it, get on the flat tire and ride it a mile where resa finds me.

so! dont get 16 gram cartridges, get the 12s for your bike, i tested this the next day. put about 10 pounds of pressure in a new tube, hit it with the catridge and bang! 100 pounds - perfect.

only 4 flats this week, so not too bad at all! :-)

monday we did the the long ride. and it was pretty hot. about 95 degrees out. the ride went well. averaged about 17 and all in all was a fun ride. but i got dehydrated and didnt really notice until the last 3 miles. i ran out of water too about 5 miles earlier. when we got back we started our 5 mile run. but i made it only 2 miles before dieing. walked and ran the rest. but gads. i need to drink more. sure was bad.


SCORES!:

mentally: 8 - huge happy swim day. i really think i have the swim covered now. really bad dehydration again - need to watch that. ( i just sweat a ton i guess! )

physically: 9 - feel strong, very dehydrated today, but the week was good.

workouts: 8 - did them all, but they were not hard until the weekend. next 3 weeks should be the hardest of them all.



all in all i think if we have a good next month we should be ready. i would, at this time give our finish time at just under 16 hours. 15:30ish maybe. :-)