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

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

Bricks Galore

In my big cram session leading up to the first Tri of the season (Issaquah Sprint) I got in 2 bricks:

1. Bike/run on the course with the Luna Chix
   
   1. It was really good to ride the course. I was trying to remember last year and all I could envision was a very long gradual climb and scary/crazy drivers. This brick workout just confirmed that.
      

      
      

      The bike course is on Lake Sammamish Pkwy; we rode this on Tue during evening traffic and it was SCARY. The road was a mess and the shoulder/bike lane was full of gravel/glass/cracks/potholes and there was an inordinate amount of roadkill littering the street. The cars were a bit pushy and a group of us were nearly roadkill ourselves under a bus that merged into the bike lane next to us. Yikes!
      

      
      

      It was a good ride though. TriCoachJill led the group and gave hints on where to push and how hard to go at certain spots. I am always shaky on my strategy during sprint tri's. I feel like on such a short course you should be going pretty hard most of the time but I don't know how to gauge whether I'll have enough in the tank to be able to push the run.
      

      
      

      Running off the bike was actually pretty good. My legs responded really quickly and I was happy with the pace I kept (average 6.3mph/9:38mi according to the Garmin). My lungs took a bit longer to get in gear and I was huffing and puffing like it was nobody's business. The course is "cross-country" and by that they meant a grass field with lots of bumps and knots. It was a bit rougher than I was used to but pretty.
      

      
      

2. Swim/Run at Lake Sammamish with The Captain
   
   1. On Thursday I met up with the Cap and we went to the lake where he was on alert to call the coroner/police divers should I drown. Honestly, I thought there'd be more swimmers out there and I was really nervous to swim by myself. It isn't something I've ever done and I probably won't do too much of it. Since OWS is scary to me anyway, being alone out there adds too many more factors to be nervous about. Plus, I would have felt bad posthumously if The Captain had been forced to just witness me drown. If I hadn't had such a disastrous 1^st OWS 2 weeks ago I would not have gotten in.
      

      
      

      The swim itself was alright. I just swam to the 1^st buoy and back 3 times each focusing on a different goal. 1^st lap: just get used to calming myself in the water and get used to the wetsuit again, 2^nd lap: attempt to swim harder but really focusing on sighting, 3^rd lap: focus on pushing hard and see how bad my sighting is when it is not my main focus.
      

      
      

      Overall my sighting capabilities have gotten weaker but I wasn't too off course and the water was great. For the most part I was able to push my irrational fears to the back of mind (at least until I felt like a big wad of hair was following me…that freaked me out and ended it). It helped relieve some stress that the water should be bearable on Saturday.
      

      
      

      Then the Captain and I ran. It was really fun running with him. He ate bugs and I laughed.
      

      He does interval training which taught me something about each of us. For him I saw what a stickler for the rules he was (his Garmin beeps a number of times to indicate when to stop running, I stopped when it started beeping whereas he ran until the beeps ended for a proper interval) and I think that indicates being a pretty determined guy. (Hmmm, maybe it's not cool to say this since he and some of his friends read this blog but) I hope he realizes not only how far he's come but also that he can do whatever he sets his determined mind to.
      

      He did stoop to being a guy though and was saying he didn't want to be embarrassed because he's slow. I cried total BS on that one. The number one thing I love about this sport is that it is deeply personal. We each set our own goals and the work it takes to get there isn't trivial for anyone. Not to mention… I've been plodding along on this running kick for 28months! (my runniversary is Jan 7, 2007)
      

      
      

      As for me (beyond learning I'm a cheater which I knew) I saw how cool interval training can be. I'm excited to use my Garmin to help me train more effectively and efficiently both on the run and the bike.
      

      
      

So that was my big lead up to Issaquah. I may not have put in quite enough time in the pool or on the bike but I'm OK with that I guess. I am going to try to enjoy tomorrow morning as much as I've enjoyed the last few months.

That which doesn’t kill you can still be disgusting

I drink a lot of water during the day. Enough that it forces me to make lots of trips to the potty which is right outside my boss' office which has probably led to him thinking I have IBD; but I digress.

When I cleaned it out on Wednesday I saw that I had a thick layer of orange/pink, slimy flora in my bottle. EW.

How long have I been drinking bacteria water? Is it concurrent with my recent decrease in desire to drink water? Does it have anything to do with my basic sluggishness and underlying blah? Maybe not but I am running with those thoughts.

 

For the rest of this week I've bought a 1.5L bottle of water and this weekend I will ask the Captain or my mom to run it through their dishwasher.

Maybe the opaque green water bottle isn't the best for assessing cleanliness. I may be pH'ing my water from now on.

 

Fun facts:

Since very hot water is the best way to get the bottle clean, a dishwasher is recommended.

FREEZE OUT

Finally, when you take the clean drinking water bottle from your dishwasher, place it into the freezer immediately. This will keep germs from getting into the bottle. It will also keep mold from forming. When you are ready to use it, take the clean drinking water bottle from the freezer, fill, and cap.

OWS!

That is Open Water Swim folks.

May 19^th, in Lake Washington (out of Seward Park).

It was SO FREAKING COLD.

SO COLD

SO COLD

I actually should probably call it an open water jog.

I met up with the Luna Chix Triathlon group at 6:00pm on a cold and rainy Seattle day. I knew it was going to be bad. I looked around at the other ladies and saw that there was only one person more screwed than I was (I with a sleeveless wetsuit and she with a short legged/sleeveless wetsuit). But I pulled on my wetsuit, rather expertly I must say, and was ready to go.

Putting my foot in the water I was actually optimistic about it. It was cold but I thought it'd be manageable. I eased into the water, loving my wetsuit. I took a few steps into the water and realized my feet were on fire and my legs were shaking like crazy. It was SO COLD but I started putting water into my wetsuit like usual; I tried SO hard to pee in my wetsuit but I was too cold to pee. I knew I was not going to last long. I started swimming toward the closest buoy with my head out of water. It wasn't too bad; I couldn't feel my feet or hands but my arms weren't numb and I was moving in the right direction. Naively, I then put my face in to get serious. WTF! Instant ice cream headache! I tried to stick it out a bit longer but between my feet, hands and face, I was a disaster! I backstroked a bit and swam for a few minutes with my head out.

Then I got out. 20minutes of just being in such cold water was all I could take. And I think it was an accomplishment. None of my OWS fears surfaced (maybe because hypothermia was kicking in) and I practiced moving around in my wetsuit again. I say success.

I got out and got out of my wetsuit right on the shore, went straight to the park benches to sign out with the Luna Chix and then headed home. I was chatting with my mom on the way home, telling her she raised a complete moron that voluntarily gets in ice water lakes, when I realized I had left my wetsuit on the beach. Genius! I sheepishly went back and retrieved it from a Luna Chick who thinks I am a Luna-tic (based on the OWS incident plus some general DA'ness at the bike ride last week).

Awesome Saturday (Run for your rights 5K race report)

I completely TORTURED myself about the decision to not run the Kirkland Half (which goes to show how important it is for me to just sign up for races early…when I've invested I feel like the decision is made). I was excited however that it freed me up to do a really fun run for an organization I love. I ran this race in 2007, it was the 2^nd 5K I ever did and the first time I ran the whole distance. My time was ~35:00ish (not chip timed and I only remembered to note the whole minute).

On Friday the Captain and I went to see the StarTrek movie with some of his friends at a supercool movie theater at 11pm. The movie was good, and his friends are great and I was happy to have cleared up the fact that the "Cinerama" in downtown Seattle was not a decrepit crack den and a nuisance to the city. I didn't hit the sack until after 2am. But here is why this is the race for me…Step off was at NOON!!!

I slept in, ate some breakfast, prep'd my bike for a ride later in the day, got some M-day cards in the mail (I know, I suck), and finally headed to the race.

Run for your rights is a fundraiser/awareness raiser for NARAL and I just love being around my pro-choice peeps! They are always so positive and dedicated…these are two traits I admire in runners too so this event combines some very upbeat/hardworking people. It was the epitome of a fun-run; people young and old, dogs, strollers, rollerskates, wheelchairs, all ready to run, trot, roll or otherwise traverse the 5K.

Where there is NARAL though, there are protesters with GIANT signs. The race on Saturday was especially special since there were a large number of protesting kids- including one especially adorable little future clinic bomber. They were hilarious; one pro-choice runner (early 20's?) was changing into a short sleeved shirt for the run (and thus exposing her jogbra!) and an Anti-choicer came by and told her how it is being slutty in that way that leads to unwanted pregnancy. HILARIOUS

There was a rally and excitement until it was finally time to run. I lined up with the runners and started my timer as I crossed the start line. I was trying to push fairly hard early on but after not too long I was feeling awful. I thought I must still be sick, or worse, must have lost any mediocre running ability I had when I was sick. I thanked my lucky stars that I didn't have 11miles or so more to go in a half marathon feeling this way. I looked at my timer as I crossed the approximate 1/2way point. 14:28…hmmm, maybe I feel crappy cause I'm running hard? So I tried to keep where I was. The result:

28:06 BITCHES! (I never like using that word like that but it was the thought that ran through my head)

That is a 9:03 mile! For the whole 5K, and if my timer was right at all I eeked out a small negative split!

I felt really tired after this and was scheduled to go for a bike ride around Mercer Island with an old TNT buddy at 1:30. I refueled and hydrated (and caffeinated) and got on my bike.

What a fantastic ride! We dangerously rode 2 abreast for awhile, catching up, talking about boys ;)

It was absolutely beautiful out; not a cloud in the sky. I attempted to take some pics.

We did once around the island (~14miles?) and I headed out to the next event. Kite Flying with my sister and nephews. We totally stunk at kite flying but Gasworks Park is THE place to be on a sunny day- kites, water, seaplanes, sailboats, and the works! Those boys are the funnest…

From there I headed out to The Captain's for tamale making. He has mad knife skills and the man can mise en place like nobody's business! I think we were a pretty good team in the kitchen and we wound up with some yummy if funky looking tamales (at 10:30pm). It was fun trying the different combinations we had made and I never knew before that masa expands in your stomach because we were so full.

He may think I am a nut job because when we were grocery shopping I couldn't stop telling him what a great day it was; to do so many things I love with so many of the people I love. It was awesome!