Is this Colorado already?

Wow, it was windy today, and we started the ride at below freezing temps. Rode the "mall crawl" - up 360 from Barton Creek Mall almost to 183, around past Anderson High School and back down 360 to BSS on South Lamar... this time with a trip up Courtyard thrown in. A couple of alumni rode with us to the bridge at the river, and then it was three of us the rest of the way.
After riding the Carmichael series the last couple of Wednesdays, the mind automatically went to "try to be consistent with the cadence, don't worry about the speed". So that is what I tried to do on this ride.
But the boys have compact doubles or triples - me? I was on my Fuji which is a regular double... this was my first trip up Courtyard, and you want to talk about some steep road! There is a false crest thrown in there, but at least you get to take a couple deep breaths part way up.
I am excited, though - we put together the website for the Triple Bypass team (www.triplebypass.me) and we have over $500 in the fundraising account already. We had a "conference" sitting in the truck before we started the ride this morning, and with some suggestions from Briana, we came up with some changes to the website.
Tomorrow swimming and Monday running, I think. Since I bought my wetsuit Sunday, I am looking forward to getting into the water in it. But I want to make sure somebody else will be out there, having never done this before. Maybe I can talk somebody in my training class into swimming, or get coach Steve out there.
The wind seems to be holding up for our rides, pretty consistently. Last Saturday, and again this weekend. Tomorrow is supposed to be colder that it was today, so likely a swim instead of a ride.
Last but not least, I registered for my third triathlon (yeah, I can hear what you are thinking - "You haven't even done ONE yet, so why register for another one?") -- the Pflugerville Tri. They are limiting the number of participants this year, which is a good thing for me - less people to try and drown me. It is close to home, and it is just sprint distance.
So - I have registered for events in April, May, June and July... three triathlons and the Triple Bypass ride. Busy season ahead!
Practice, practice, practice!

I have met the devil !

I say that in jest... our team riding the Triple Bypass in July 2010 is meeting on Wednesday nights to work on climbing skills, on the trainers. Kristen bought Allen the Chris Carmichael Climbing Series, and we work out to those - Speed, Endurance and Power. These things are brutal! I am sure we will get to the point where we can ride the session and look like the folks on the video when we get done, but for now it is puddles of sweat. Great workouts, though.
And the swimming and running continues. On some evenings I will ride and then jump into the running shoes. Tuesday I managed to get on the tri bike and push for almost 11 miles (I need to measure out the 12 mile marker) averaging almost 20mph. I know Galveston is fairly flat, so hopefully the push on the hills will help.
Soon it will be time to try out the wetsuit in the lake. I am looking forward to that - hopefully nobody will shoot the beached whale in the water!

And awayyyy we go!

So - it has been about a month since my last post. In the interim, I have been swimming usually twice a week, working on the running, and of course, getting on the bike. It has been a busy month with the holidays and all that entails. But I did manage to participate in the Freeze Your Fanny ride on New Year's Day.

With the new bike, I have been doing some longer rides, and realizing how much fresher I feel coming off the tri bike, compared to riding the same mileage on the road bike. But I have to maintain a balance in the time I am spending on each bike - on January 13th, I registered for my 2010 goal, the Triple Bypass ride. They changed the way they handle the registration process this year, and with a cap of 3500 riders, registration closed in less than an hour! My three fellow Triple Bypass teammates were also successful registering.

But a lot of work between now and the ride on July 10th, outside Denver... I have to prepare for the two triathlons, and get in a lot of road time on both bikes with my training coach for both her events and mine, as well as with my Triple Bypass team.

The weather hasn't cooperated much these last couple of weeks for the road riding...I like the bike trainer almost as little as I like treadmills, but you do what you gotta do, right?

Today, we had our first official Triple Bypass team practice - we did one of the Carmichael Climbing series in Allen's garage on the trainers. Tomorrow I will do a road ride on the tri bike, and then either get in a swim or a run. I am excited about good weather on a weekend for a change, and it won't last long before the next wave of ugliness rolls into the area. We plan on doing the Carmichael once a week and getting the road time in on the weekends, riding some with the Team In Training cycling team.

Looking forward to the next few months...

Wow! This is cool !!

This morning after church, I got the tri bike out on the road for the first time. I had pulled the pedals off the road bike yesterday for the fitting since the new ones haven't come in yet, and I have not yet bought a bottle cage or tri bottle for the bike, but I really expected to only be on the bike for about an hour or so. I wanted to test the fit, and run through the gear-shifting for a bit. We didn't mess with the gearing yesterday, so that part was still an unknown.
So off I went. The fit feels pretty good, and I am happy that the guys at the bike shop explained everything, but I did all the work. Always good to learn as much as you can about your equipment. But the derailleur and gear-shifting needs some adjustment. Looks like I will be going back to Bobby.
Ended up being on the bike about an hour and a half. I will say that I can really feel a lot of difference between the ride on the tri and that of the road bike. The ride itself felt good, although there is a bit of noticeable difference between tri shorts and bike shorts.
Looking forward to longer rides on this bike. Maybe Christmas weekend if it doesn't get too awfully cold or wet.

If you don't push yourself, who will?

Well, now that my holidays are over, I can get back to the training in a serious way... we did family Christmas today, so my celebrating is over. I have been swimming once or twice a week, started the running and now am the very proud owner of a new tri bike. I am so excited about this... I never  thought i would ever want to do a triathlon, instead spending all my exercise focus on the road bike. But once I decided to retire from officiating after the football season was over, I started thinking it would be beneficial to cross-train, and talked to some friends of mine about their own triathlon experiences.
So after much deliberation, I registered for the Rookie Triathlon, which is May 9th. I thought this short distance would be the best way to see how much I like the triathlon environment. Well, shortly after registering for the Rookie, we figured out the Lone Star Half-Iron is in April, which would make THAT my first event... hold on, I am only doing the sprint distance on Saturday. So I am currently signed up for two triathlons, and very excited about it.
I had also signed up for a swim clinic with our Team In Training swim coaches. When we took the swim clinic, I couldn't make it very far at all - heck, I was lucky to get all the way across the pool one time. Haven't done the open-water swim yet, but I am looking forward to it. I have been able to complete multiple 300- and 500-meter swims. Not fast, but finishing. Speed comes later - I hope.
Right now, it gets dark pretty early, so my long rides will be mostly restricted to the weekends. But the running and swimming I will try to get in multiple sessions. I have a 16-week Sprint training plan from Beginner Triathlete, so I will be working on that.
This past weekend, I did my first personal mini-triathlon. Rode the bike on the trainer for 30 minutes, then swam for about 1 1/2 hours, mostly doing short sprints of 50 or 100 meters while my training partner did her 4 million meters. Then drove home and ran for 31 minutes, also not fast.
Last night after work I managed to get in a 15-mile sprint on the road bike, to test the speed - boy, I am out of shape. I only managed a 19.85  average,  Weird though - carrying the bike back into the house, a spoke on the back wheel popped.
Got the spoke fixed and the Tri bike fitted today so I am looking forward to getting out on the road tomorrow.
I never imagined I would ever do 3000 miles on the bike in a single year, but I am just over 100 miles away from achieving that. With the training for the Triple Bypass and the two triathlons I signed up for, I expect to do a lot more in the next 9-10 months.
I thank God for the opportunity He has given me to do this, and I am tremendously grateful for the support I am getting from my training partner, and my cycling teammates on the long rides.

Well, at least I didn't sink...

Tuesday, I was going to try to get a ride in, but didn't make it out of the office until after 5, so it was already starting to get dark. So I figured it was time to get the running shoes out again. I had set them aside during football season - running the sidelines with a lot of stop-and-go effort doesn't help the distance running. Didn't want to push it right off the bat, so I did a 30-minute run/walk. Felt pretty good.
Wednesday, I managed an earlier exit from work. Got home and changed clothes, got the road bike out and pedaled through the neighborhood to warm up. Once I got out of the 'hood onto a bigger (longer) road, I decided to work on a sprint. The first 5 miles was into the wind, so the 15-mph average didn't look too good. But once I turned for the next 7 (for some reason I was thinking the Rookie Tri is 12 miles of riding) I ended up managing an 18.6 avg overall. Yeah, yeah, I know - need some work there. But I have to get out of the 100-mile pace-yourself mentality.
The distances in the Rookie Tri are actually: 300 meter swim, 11.1 miles on the bike and a 2-mile run.
We were supposed to ride this morning, but it started raining last night and didn't quit until after noon. So, we decided to swim instead. It was kinda funny when we walked into the Rec Center and I swiped my card through the reader. Normally, it just beeps, but this time it played the tada trumpet. The lady behind the counter hollered "Happy Birthday" as I walked down the hall...anyway, the pool wasn't too crowded, and just as we walked into the pool area, two women who were sharing a lane were getting out, so the timing was perfect. We climbed in and did some warmups. I once again started out with a too-fast stroke, so I got a little winded after a couple of laps. But once I slowed down, I was able to swim longer between stops. I figured I would see how far I could go without a long break, given the slowness of my swimming. I managed a 300 meter swim, and didn't feel too winded. By this time most of the other swimmers had left the pool so I moved over to the next lane. I swam a 400 meter distance, and still didn't feel too bad, so I was pretty excited.
That first triathlon won't be an attempt at any great time -- goal number one is to just want to get through one and finish, and after today's swim, I feel like I can manage the swim okay, as long as I remember to not get ahead of myself. The swim is just the first leg, but now I am beginning to feel okay with it. So - I have the swim manageable, the bike definitely is doable with more sprint practice - now I just have to work up to a 2-mile run...
This is probably going to hurt tomorrow, isn't it? oh, well, tomorrow is an off day - I am volunteering at a off-road bike race.
So I am getting excited. I am going down this week and look at tri bikes and wetsuits! The next step is trying out a bike. I got fitted yesterday so am anxious to see what the tri bike feels like. The bike shop said I could road test one or two, for a few days at a time. Cool!

Hard Ride, Awesome Friends

So, this past weekend was difficult on the one hand, inspirational on the other. Saturday's ride was 60+ miles up Parmer to Andice. The turn off from Parmer to Andice I always hate, because of the rough chipseal road and all the vibrations that come with that part of the ride.

On the way back in (into the wind), I managed to flat the rear tire and had the usual fun of changing tires, combined with the fact that I grabbed the wrong size tube as a spare. By the time the wheel was fixed, and the guys had quit laughing at me, the wind had really picked up. By the time I made it back to Cool River, the legs were screaming at me. All in all, it WAS a good training ride.

Sunday brought the inspirational part of the weekend. I went to San Antonio to watch some of my TNT teammates, fellow football officials and a couple of ladies from work run the Rock n Roll Marathon. I took the bike so I could get around to different parts of the run without worrying about driving around closed roads, which turned out to be a very good decision. It is truly amazing to see the commitment and perseverance of so many runners. Some of my friends finished early and some late, some ran only the half-marathon. Even as a spectator, you feel the rush as those in your life run past you as you cheer them on. I applaud every one of the thousands of runners I watched that day. I particularly want to celebrate the effort of Kyle, who finished the full marathon 41st overall; Briana; Luis; Brandi; Stormy; Ethan; and Melonie.

With football season now over, I will be able to commit to the training plan for my first triathlon, the Rookie in May 2010, as well as riding with the team to prepare for the Triple Bypass ride in July. This is going to be a fun 9 months!