Thursday, June 4, 2009

Bike Haiku

These made me laugh:

Embrocation
Ben Gay, good for legs
not as good for chamois cream
O God make it stop!
Rico M., 5/08

Piety
Damn! Another hill
Lord, please forgive my cursing
and level this land
Heather B., 4/08


 

More:

16 Percent Grade
Climbing single speed
I attain the Republic
Anaerobia!
John N., 12/08

Infarct
Blood and sweat and tears
Keep me riding all these years
God, I love to bike.
Nola O., 12/08

Perseverance
Forty-four F out
chattering fingers, feet, jaw
Peet's in a half hour
Pete H., 12/08

Bike Porn
EBay search engine
carbon fiber in my size
Are these pics for real?
Dan M., 11/08

Feeding the Winter Monkey
Bootlegs of Le Tour
rollers screaming, spraying sweat
my ersatz summer
Dan M., 11/08

Winter Kilograms
Where is my spare tire?
lift up my jersey, look down
damn now I see it
John L., 11/08

Sonoran Desert Winter
Fat tires are rumbling
over desert rocks once more
cool enough to ride
Casey C., 11/08

Autumn
New blue bicycle
slicing through a windy prairie
wheat, corn, potatoes
Greg F., 9/08

Mishap
Pedals, free my feet
World turning, now on my back
Pedals freed my feet
Steven T., 10/08

Big Beef
An eighth of a ton
only when going downhill
is fat oh so fast
John G., 6/08

Asphalt Cathedral
On the starting line
my idea of "Sunday Mass"
will begin shortly
Rico M., 5/08

Lessons Learned
First time in lycra
what, the padding goes inside?
so that's why they laugh
Rico M., 5/08

Monday, June 1, 2009

Green does not suit me

On Sunday Cap bought a new bike. It is so pretty. Scattante 560, it has a carbon fiber fork, Shimano 105's. It's light and fast. I think he got a good deal on a great bike.

And I am jealous.

Why, oh why is this freaking sport (triathlon) so damn expensive? Seriously, triathlon has turned me into a wanton retail whore. Mind you, I don't want to stop I just wish it was better aligned with where I am in life. While it sucks less than the previous state of being (early 20's so-broke-you-float-checks) it still sucks to be in this late-20's not-super-broke-anymore-but-trying-to-make-smart-decisions-toward-goals-even-when-that's-not-fun. I've never loved clothes or shoes or makeup or other things that can usually wind a recent graduate in trouble. But I want tri-gear. It's ridic. The gear, the clothes, the races, there is just so much to buy!

I have spent the last nearly 4 years getting my financial act in order but truly getting on top of things feels so slow and the road is being made longer by all the new things I want to own and to do and places I want to go to use and do them.

I think I am going to go on Suze Orman and ask her "Can I Afford" a new bike. And then she'll bonk me on the head and remind me that we're in a recession (possibly a depression). She will wonder if the cost of a new bike is worth derailing house buying plans in a buyer's market. She'll not so subtly imply that biotech is a tough business to be in and start-ups are the worst. Finances scare the crap out of me because I hate to think I'm wasting these years of potential interest compounding by thinking more of my income is disposable than it is actually is.

But I still want things.

Last summer I started a running list of all the tri-crap I wanted. Some of it I've acquired and some I still can't justify. Before acting on any of those purchases I actually dropped a chunk of change on a financial advisor. Because I wanted to know where I was and how to get where I want to be while still being able to indulge in the ridic every once in awhile. It didn't help; financial advisors just make me feel like I am so behind and the job of catching up seems so arduous.

Suze says "People first, then money, then things"

But I still want things.

___

Note: I am jealous of his new ride but I am SO excited he got it. It's going to be super fun riding together! I do love my bike and she and I have a lot more good miles together that I hope we'll share with The Captain and his new ride.

My New training plan (Iss. Sprint Race Report)

Issaquah 2008 was the first Tri I ever did.

The difference between this year and last? Last year I had trained for 4 months with TNT and was raring to go, this year I have slacked off and bitched about whether or not to do this race*.

I guess slacking and bitching work for me!

I managed to take 10minutes off my Issaquah time!


Issaquah 2009

Overall

Swim (1/4mi)

T1

Bike

(14mi)

T2

Run

(5K)

1:26:25

0:06:37

2:18

0:47:59

0:01:10

0:28:20





Issaquah Race Report

Spent the night before hanging out with the nephews at their new house and before I knew it, it'd gotten very late. So I got the kids in bed and hit the sack myself. I slept great probably more out of exhaustion than out of assurance of my race readiness.

I woke up at what I thought would be dark-o'thirty but it was light out and the day was looking to be a good one. Due to events of the night before I hadn't been able to pick up anything for a pre-race meal so I foraged through my Mom's cabinets thinking I'd go for the standby of PB&J. What house with kids does not have PB? I settled on 2 mini bagels toasted, one with cream cheese and one with jelly. This felt like nothing and there were still 2hours until the race started so I was hoping to stop by the store to grab a banana or other additional grub. But the clock was ticking and I wanted to set up transition, find old friends and meet up with the Captain who was sweet enough to drag his booty out of bed at some ungodly hour just to cheer me on and hold my boss' stuff ;)

So straight to the park I went. The day was perfect! I had picked up my packet the day before and was all body marked so I just strolled into transition. Setting up my transition area came back to me just like riding a bike. My rack was full of amiable speed demons which was cool; they were low key and had fancy bikes that I could ogle plus I knew they'd be out of transition by the time I was there.

I bumped into a few TNT friends who were all having prerace issues (needed a pump, forgot her bike shoes, etc) and then found my boss at the prerace meeting. It was her first tri and she was adorably nervous for someone who swims 3 times a week, has ridden century rides and consistently pulls out sub-30min 5K…I didn't doubt she'd do fine. Her weakness though was her vision, she wanted to have her glasses with her on the beach but didn't have anyone to hand them off too. Enter The Captain to save the day, he graciously agreed to Sherpa for us.

The Race

Swim- I was VERY nervous about the swim. I hadn't been swimming much at all and figured I would be toast in OW. This early season race has a short swim (1/4mi) which was great except it meant we were almost back before the pack of bodies thinned out. I had a goggle malfunction right away, with water getting into my right goggle, and then tried to swim one-eyed. Sighting went well after one mishap at the first buoy where if I hadn't looked up, I'd have swum into the open lake.

T1- Getting out of the water was good, wetsuit stripped halfway and cap/goggles off. I got my land legs pretty fast and was out on the bike.

Bike- Maybe it was the short swim or maybe the Shredding I've been doing has strengthened my core but I didn't feel as wobbly as I had in previous races when I got on the bike. I tried to follow Coach Jill's advice for the bike and was REALLY happy with the results. According to my Garmin my average speed was 17.5mph with a high of 33.5. I got tripped up on one hill where I was barely moving but otherwise a great ride.

Had a near miss on the bike, I was shifting down on the above mentioned hill and my chain dropped completely off. Rather than panicking I shifted further (kind of just tried shifting around frantically) which miraculously picked up the chain!

I had promised myself I'd drink at least half of my water bottle (containing 50% water/50% Gatorade FIERCE) but I only managed a few swigs.

T2- Almost flawless except I tried racking my bike backwards and had to do it again.

Run- My legs felt great right off the bike, it was hot and I was a bit worried about hydration but luckily I was still a bit wet from the swim. My goal had been keeping ~9:30min/mi pace. I clocked the first mile at 9:38 (not too bad) and the next 2.1 were avg 9:58 (whoops).

High fived the Captain at the finish line and we got to watch some of my friends and my manager come in. I tease him about being a total social butterfly (CAUSE HE IS!) but I felt like one on Saturday. There were TNT folks out in force and I am always so happy to catch up with them.

It was a great race and I can't believe I was able to cut so much time off but that wasn't the highlight of the day. I got to introduce Multi-sport to 2 newbies (BossLady and The Captain). It is such a fun environment and, especially this small race, is really supportive and encouraging to the "everyday athletes ."

The Bosslady is already talking about how the whole company should do Seafair in July. As for Cap, I think I may have sold him on the idea of at least a Du and he, DSF

and I could totally do a relay now that he has a bike.

*to be fair, in between last year and slacking off I’ve done 1 Oly, 3more sprints, trained for and ran a marathon

_______________________
Issaquah last year
Swim 00:07:54.4 T1 00:02:07.7 Bike 00:55:44.3 T2 00:01:04.2 Run 00:28:30.4 Finish 01:35:21.1