Dancing Snoopy

(If you've ever seen the Peanuts cartoon of Snoopy dancing because it's the weekend, you'll understand.)

It's warm. It's sunny. It's time to go out and suffer!! And so I did. Isn't that what weekends are for?

Yes, triathletes are mentally unbalanced. It goes with the territory.

I rode my bike 23 miles yesterday in very windy conditions. Going into the wind I had struggled to hold 10 mph with a HR of 173! (It didn't help that my uniform wind jacket was too big and acted like a nice jib in the breeze.) When I first got out on the bike today, I felt a few gusts of wind and my heart sank. Instantly I thought about doing crit loops or something cheesy rather than logging in the miles. Instead I extended my warmup by a few miles and then headed out to Hwy. 80.

Out on the road it was surprisingly not bad. I was able to ride the big ring most of the way to Crow today (yesterday small ring the entire way). 'Course, didn't have the magic of the tailwind pushing me all the way to Hawkins, but I'll take this combination any day. Stopped in Hawkins (1 hour) for a tire check. (There's always glass and other crap on the roads. I live in constant fear of flats.) Then back to Crow again. That put me at about 23 miles. My minimum goal for the day was 25 but I felt decent so I headed back towards Hawkins. Good sense (and a sore posterior) prevailed over ambition and I only went as far as the pavement divide (i.e., where the chip seal turns to smooth pavement in the opposite, westbound lane) and then headed back to the Lake Hawkins turn off. I hit the lap button and intended to take it relatively easy on the way home. That last hill, though, is always a killer. The bottom kicks up almost instantly to 7-8% in the first 40 yards before settling down to 2-3% the rest of the way home. By now my neck and shoulders were bothering me, though the shoulder had been just fine till the last ten minutes. 32.33 miles, 1:57, 16.5 average.

Transition was...well, let's just say it was not a rehearsal for race day, though the tromp from the front gate to the garage is probably going to be shorter than the distance I'll have to travel to my bike--1 of over 2,000--in New Orleans! I decided not to change into running shorts since I didn't plan on running more than 15 minutes. I got all my gear off and put on my running shoes then trotted back towards the gate. Outside the gate, reality bit big time: even running downhill I was stiff as a board. At the bottom of Sadie's Hill I looked at my watch: 2 minutes down, 13 more to go! Suddenly the prospect of running 13 miles after cycling for 56 seemed preposterous beyond belief. But what was 15 minutes? So I shuffled onward, huffing and puffing. (Had no idea what my HR was.) I made it past Fish Hawk point, totaling about 10 minutes, before I stopped and bent over for a few seconds, hoping the brick that was my right glute might stretch out a bit. Then up and at it again. Another two minutes and I walked for a few seconds. I think when I made it to the bottom of Lee's Hill my watch said 13:10. That's about 1.2 miles. I hobbled up the steep gradient, still huffing and puffing. I could hear laughter and saw that Charles and Diane had guests. I didn't even want to think what they might say upon seeing me, so after walking 1:30, I trotted the rest of the way home.

Later, I didn't feel so bad about the run. I thought, "Well, you did that! Now all you have to do is repeat it about 11 times and you're there!" It will be nice that, during the race, the water stations will be every 1.5 miles, which is exactly how far it is around our circle here.

Wonder what I'll do tomorrow....