Sad to See it Go

Just watching the formal procession of riders before the racing begins on the Champs Elysee. Seeing this year's Tour de France end elicits a sense of both sadness and relief--sadness that the great race and all its drama is gone for another year, but also relief that I will no longer be glued to the television every morning/afternoon and will be free to work out in the few more weeks of freedom that remain before school starts. The race next year: no more Lance; the Schlecks on a new team--and hopefully Frank healthy for the Tour; new sponsor for the Saxo Bank team--and who will be their new GC rider?; God willing, *new uniforms* for Footon-Servetto!; a healthy Cadel, but probably no longer wearing the World Champion stripes. Lots of anticipation for the next twelve months.

Three Sports

The last time I blogged it was on the subject of my first "epic" ride of the year. It's also been my only "epic" ride of the year. The shine went out of that. It was no use pushing myself to ride almost three hours just to end up with the inevitable muscle spasms. Instead I've managed to keep my finger in all three tri sports this year. I determined I would not lay off running once the summer heat laid in and I have stuck to that--mainly by doing BRICKS (bike-run-ick!). I found it's easier to get in a mile or two when I'm either cool and wet from a lake swim or nice and warmed up from a moderate bike ride. So I've managed to get in two run workouts, two swim workouts, and two bike workouts most every week--or at least until the start of the Tour de France really cramped my ability to do the early morning workouts. (At least the World Cup games--half at least--occurred after lunch local time, and after the Round Robin stage they weren't every day.) At least until the mountains, though, I managed to satisfy myself with watching the afternoon replay. But now we're in the Pyrenees....I'm hooked to the tube!

Anyway, I have at least time and allowance for a little bit of slack. I did the Jefferson Triathlon yesterday (was it just yesterday--it seems so long ago...) and managed miraculously to win my age division and take third overall master's female. That gave me a special satisfaction since last year they decided to cut back on awards to only two places per age group in some divisions and so I lost out last year on a third place award. So I kind of joked with myself that I wouldn't give them any choice this year because I would win it! But kidding aside, I got what I could from perseverance, but also have to recognize that the women's fields were incredibly thin this year. There were perhaps 6 women in my age group, as opposed to 7 last year, and there were even fewer in some of the other groups. (The men's fields seem pretty full.) However, that's a sword that works both ways: I can post a personal PR and still finish way down if the really gifted ladies show up, or I can run a 10 minute mile and win if they don't. In other words, you can only race against who shows up, and you can't win if you don't show up. I showed up!