Some pet peeves...

Headwinds. Pedestrians in the bike lane. Cars making right hand turns (10 feet in front of me). Potholes. Butt soreness. I experienced all these things and more during today's six hour workout. Because I want you to experience the pain with me, I will detail each one...

First the headwinds. The wind was whipping at about 15mph, with gusts at about 20mph. If you've never experienced riding your bike in strong winds, it's kinda like having someone try to pull you backwards as you're trying to move forward. And then there were the winds that come from the side; those ones try to knock you right off your bike. The wind lasted the entire length of the workout.

There's a section of road during the ride I go on each week and you may even know it: Danville Blvd. right in front of San Ramon Valley High School. People sell their cars there. And prospective buyers peruse the onslaught of what I think should be, illegally parked cars by standing, walking and wandering in the bike lane. I can't tell you how many times I have almost hit someone as they carelessly backed up to get a better look at their dream car, and step exactly into my path. Annoying.

At around mile 43 I had the (dis)pleasure of riding next to a woman who wanted to make a right hand turn into a soccer field parking lot. The problem was that she was oblivious to my presence. As she turned, I had no choice but to turn with her, otherwise I would be riding on top of her hood. For all you drivers out there: please keep an eye out for cyclists--in the event of a collision, you will always come out the victor!

So I'm riding along minding my own business right around mile 56 and BAM! My entire body is jolted because I have failed to see a pothole the size of...well, a pot! And the annoying part is that it's not a hole that has formed because of bad weather or corrosion, oh no...it's a man-made hole for drainage or something. How someone could think placing a hole in the middle of bike lane as a good idea is beyond me! It's like purposely tripping people as they're running.

After five hours sitting on a bike seat, I think the butt soreness speaks for itself. No explanation needed!

The amazing thing about today, was that after enduring all of the above, I felt absolutely great...well, except for a sore ass! I ran 4.2 miles after my 68 mile bike ride and nothing hurt! So either I'm imagining feeling good, or I'm actually getting stronger. I think it's the latter!

It finally happened...

...something I thought only happened to people on the Biggest Loser, or professional triathletes on the last leg of an Ironman race. I barfed on my run yesterday. I won't go into any great detail of the contents that ended up on the side of the Iron Horse Trail, but let's just say I should've passed on the second piece of cinnamon raisin toast I enjoyed for breakfast before my run! Here's the positive aspect of my eight mile run yesterday: I realized that I can keep running even when I'm at the height of discomfort; and believe me, I WILL have discomfort during that race.

Typically, we do our bike ride on Saturday and our run on Sunday, but due to a gigantic need to sleep until 9:00am yesterday, we decided to flip the two workouts around. Today was a five hour bike ride, followed immediately by a 45 minute run. I was able to log 69 miles on the bike, which works out to 14 mph. My goal is to do between 15-16 mph during the race and you would think it wouldn't take that much more effort to get there, but the difference feels immense. In any event, I felt pretty damn good considering I sat in that seat for five hours!

This coming week is a recovery week--WOO HOO! And I'm going to enjoy every minute of it because after this week we go into a three week Ironman specific training schedule that is guaranteed to kick my ass!

Have I mentioned that I'm raising money for The Samfund? Check out my fundraising page to get all the details: http://www.crowdrise.com/suesironodyssey2

Unlucky 13

Today marks the end of week number 13, which can only mean one thing...cold water swims. And so you might be asking, "Why the hell would you want to do that?" Well, the water in Tempe is actually colder than you'd expect, and for a Southern California girl, it's almost unbearable. And I hate being cold. Two years ago when I did the race, I jumped into the 62 degree water and just about stopped breathing. I would really like to try and avoid that this time around, so I MUST acclimate to cold water. Our plan is this: swim once a week at Lake Del Valle and take cold showers every day starting a month before the race. Did I mention I hate being cold? This is the part of the training that I knew was coming and the part I was dreading, but I will suck it up and do it. I will do it for the following reasons:
1. I want to appear studly
2. I'm thinking about joining the SF Polar Bear Club (not)
3. I'm tired of swimming indoors (for real)
and most importantly...
4. I do not want to stop breathing on November 20th