CRASH

Well yesterday started out well, but couldn't get that good rhythm in the paceline. Felt more like a race. We all had a hard ride until the end when Eddie dropped his glasses and looked back for them. As he did his front wheel left the pavement and he tried to correct, which is nearly impossible. I was unfortunately right behind him and he layed down right in front of me and I went sailing over the handlebars and next thing I knew I am standing in the grass. Although between leaving the bike and standing, I hit the pavement HARD! Left quite a bit of skin from both elbows, my hand, knee and back along with fabric from my jersey. The fortunate thing, if there really is in a crash, is that neither one of us broke anything. I am really sore on my right side and my left wrist, so it is going to take a while to get back to normal. Just hope my dogs don't mind shorter play sessions while throwing a ball for a while.

You know how hot it is?

It's so hot that when I took a shower this morning after my brick workout, I only used cold water and it wasn't cold. It was quite comfortable and I could have stood there all day. I even got into the shower after I had stopped sweating. Can't wait until fall.

The workouts are progressing well. I actually enjoy the bricks. Makes running alittle more tolerable. Not my favorite thing to do. I am going to continue this schedule for the next month and increase my running mileage and then begin the time trial position on the bike for the last month before the race. Need to get some swims in also. It will all come together. So far so good, just wish we could have a cold front come through. Right!

Sitters

I decided to roll on throught the meeting area since I was early and get a jump on things before I got caught by the group. Nice to just spin at 20-21 before the craziness. Well I caught up to Todd and we talked for a while only going about 15. A little too slow to suddenly jump to 25+. Anyway the group finally came by at Williams and we jumped in. Not very well organized but we did our best. I was helping with a mediocre rotation. Kept running into traffic and that can upset things a bit if your not paying attention, like most people. They seem to get mesmorized by the person in front of them and will just sit there.

We picked it up after the dip going about 27 and over the small bumps which was fun, rollercoaster effect. That pace continued until the turnaround. On the way back everyone was intent on sitting in. I finally had enough and came from 8 back to get in front and start a rotation. Fortunately a few took the example and we had about 6 rotating, then 5, 4, 3, 2 and I was pooped by then. Every now and then a new face would show up and finally at the end about 6 came through. Saving it for the finish. Pansies! Oh well it was a good workout and I will just think that I benefitted more than they did.

First Brick

Well it wasn't too bad, although it was short, 20 bike and 2 run. No big deal, just trying to get used to transition. Had a nice ride averaging 20-21 and then a good run, not too fast not too slow. But man was it hot. My body just cranks out the sweat. I have been drinking water all morning and still haven't gone. Hope one works up soon or I will be in trouble for the morning "long" levee ride. I hope to do this every monday and friday and work the run up to 5 miles before I start pushing the pace. I think I can get that in the next 3 weeks. Got to find that swim suit.

Legs of lead

Whew, hot this morning. Got up very late to meet the early group and time trialed it from the house for about 35 minutes until I decided the group would be uncatchable at this point. That really put a hurting on the ole legs and I really couldn't get into a groove this morning. I made it almost to the Luling Bridge and found the group on the way back, really scattered along the path. So I turned around in about the middle of the spread out group and soft pedalled until Eddie came screaming by on his tri bike with a couple of followers. I jumped at the opportunity to finally draft someone. All be it, it was alittle fast, 28 and he kept it up for about 3 miles. Then we held pace at about 26 and I was feeling really tired. Don't know what it was but everytime I got to the back of the group I didn't feel like I was getting a break. Just felt like I had to keep accelerating to keep up. Well I finally had it when we were finally going 24 and there were only 5 of us. I just felt tired and sat up and could only maintain 16. My legs just felt like lead and couldn't maintain the turnover I wanted. So I had another 10 miles to go and took me a good 45 minutes to finally get home. Sure hope I feel better soon.

Knucklehead

Today almost was a repeat of Tuesday. I didn't ride Tuesday due to inclement weather, but I had to go out. Glad I did, because it only sprinkled for about 30 minutes and we seemed to have missed all the heavy stuff as the path was pretty wet in some places. We had a decent pace going 23-24 but seemed a bit slow for a thursday ride, therefore people were taking longer pulls. So not much action until the end of the ride. I happened to be at the end of the paceline, about 10th position, when Matt picked it up on the front. Well since the ride wasn't too tough I decided to see if I could catch the 3 that were off the front. I had a little trouble getting through but once clear of the group I ramped it up over 30 and was making good ground on them. As I got within 10 meters I noticed that a cop in his SUV was driving pretty eratic along the path. Moving to the right then the left and driving off the path. Well Matt started to draft his vehicle and when the cop pulled off the path he passed him. Not a smart move since there is an speed limit of 20, of course it is not posted, but we are suppose to be aware of it. He was going 30, and the cop pulled back on the path, determined his speed while everyone else knew what was coming up. We sat up and started yelling all kinds of stuff. This isn't a good situation because the cops will be out looking for us to be above the limit. Well the blue and red lights came on and he pulled Matt over to have a little chat. Ole Billy Bob was impressed with the speed Matt was going but not about the safety issues. Knucklehead! Just made us more visible and now if any complaints come in from the little ole ladies, we have a black mark against us. Dummy had to say, "Well I only ride up here once a week." Yeah, but most of us ride up there everyday.

830

830 miles for the month just on the road bike, 915 with commuting added in. Maybe someday I will break the 1000 mile barrier for the month, but not this year. I need to start picking up the running miles for the Triathlon in October.

Sunday I got in 60 miles. I headed out to the lake to meet up with the Giro. But I left late and had to stop and adjust my cleat on the left shoe. Therefore I knew I was going to miss the group. So when I finally reached Lakeshore Drive I just took a right and kept on going, right into a nice headwind. I thought "Boy is this going to suck by myself". I just tried to keep it around 20. I ended up riding for 90 minutes by myself before the group came by me in the same direction as me. Turns out I wasn't late after all. Well they had a nice clip of 24-25 going and I jumped in. A few of the guys asked if I had gotten lost. I just said they were late. HA!

Well things took a while to get going on the return from Venetian Isle and we just pedalled at 22 for a while then as we were approaching the Chevron station we ended up hitting above 30. The light was red so it was hairy getting through. A gapped formed and then that was the end of the group. I went with 5 others and we worked solidly until Jazzland road then there were 4 total. We had a great paceline up until the Shoney's. People started dropping like flys. Rob kept up his pace and I was with Scott, we eventually caught Rob on Hayne's Rd and picked the pace back up to 25-26. When we came to the first bridge near the casino they had a gap of about 25 meters on me because I had slowed for a red light. I blasted up the hill and Rob and I ended up dropping Scott. We kept our pace high until the next bridge over the canal and we both took off mano a mano. Rob got to the top first as I eased up near the crest, I was done. Felt good to be out there but I kept wondering about the rest of the giro. We weren't really going that fast and no one caught us. Oh well, maybe someone flatted. Didn't see anything relating to a crash on Randy's site so that made me feel better about taking off. Well looks like I need to get my running shoes in order. Only 11 weeks to go.