Hump Day Miscellany – At’s all about Momo!

Posted on May 28, 2008 by 21cm

In honor of my dear friend Momo I bring you the return of Hump Day Miscellany. She said she missed it.

1). I tried the tire levers – really I did. The tire was just too tight even for them

2). McBikey canceled on our afternoon ride today (too much work) and I thought I’d use it as the perfect excuse to blow off my 90 minute ride but I didn’t. I pulled up my big girl pants (aka my bike shorts) put on my helmet and got it done. All but 6 minutes and 15 seconds but who’s counting?

3). I finally mowed the lawn today. As I live and breath, when I get a job and have an income I’m hiring someone else to do that. I don’t care that it only takes about 30 minutes – I don’t like doing it and I have a tendency to run over rocks and sticks and it makes a terrible noise and I might lose a foot or something.

4). The cat continues to require force feeding. She has shown some minor interest in eating on her own but not enough to sustain her. If anyone knows how to get a cat to start eating again please let me know!

5). We are having very oogey weather for California. It’s actually perfect running weather and it isn’t too bad for cycling but it isn’t sunny and clear by any means. More of a cloudy and windy sort of thing. I want my summer!

6). My blister is healed but I really did a number on my thumb joint. I hope it heals and I haven’t given myself a permanent case of bursitis or arthritis.

7). I have mismatched wheels on my bike – too bad. The wheels still go round and round and that’s about all I need right now. That and some more speed!

8). I love Jet Blue – I just changed my flight and it didn’t cost me a dime! Love them.

Posted in Hump Day | 8 Comments

Monday Monday – Rosy Palm is your Friend

Posted on May 26, 2008 by 21cm

I wrote recently about a ride up Mt. Diablo that was accomplished in spite of a slow leak in my rear tube. That was on a Saturday. On Monday I changed the tube. I think Tuesday’s ride went fine but then on “Thursday I had the same problem – the rear tire kept going flat over and over and over – it was SO annoying. It made me stronger but what a lousy way to go.

I vowed to my riding partner, Dr. McBikey that I would get a new tire so we didn’t have to keep stopping so on Thursday night I got out some tires I purchased some time ago and attempted to make the switch. I pulled off the old, got out a new tube, got the tire into the rim on one side and then, when I had all but the last 4 inches on the rim all progress stopped. I couldn’t get it to budge. I pushed and pushed with my thumbs until it hurt too much. My head was screaming “USE YOUR PALMS!” but I ignored it and put on a pair of gloves and just kept pushing.

I gave up and took the glovee off and was greated with tihs:

That’s a blister that split and then had the skin roll under, leaving a ridge of skin. mmmmmmmmmmmm… You can also see how swollen the joint of my tumb is. Owie.

The next day I took the wheel, tire and tube to my local Sports Basement and they were kind enough to mount it. It took 3 guys to get that last part on – the third one was the only one with strong enough hands. I was so vindicated.

After I got home I managed to unroll the skin so the blister looked like this:

I rode for 3 hours on Sunday and all was well with the rear tire. Dr. McB was out of town and didn’t have the pleasure of my new tire.

Today my thumb looks like this:

Just a dead skin rim around some fresh pink skin.

So today’s PSA is this – USE YOUR PALMS not your thumbs when you change the tire.

hshahahaha… to those of you who tought I would write some dirty. Gutter brains!

Posted in Cycling | 13 Comments

Monday Monday – Climbing the Hard Way and a PSA

Posted on May 19, 2008 by 21cm

Triathlon training is going very well these days. I have a new riding pal we will refer to as Dr. McBikey because he’s a doctor and he’s attractive enough to warrant the reference. This is just a biking thing so don’t get excited. The thing about Dr. McBikey that’s nice is that he wants to ride at 6:15 AM and that works for me and it is MUCH easier to get out there at the butt crack of dawn if someone is expecting you than if you lack that particular incentive.

Anyhow, on Thursday I had mentioned that I would probably climb Mt. Diablo on Saturday and he asked if he could come so I said sure! As it turns out no one else was available so it was just us. Friday night I noticed that my rear tire was completely flat so Saturday I got up extra early so I could change it (we didn’t start until 8 AM on Saturday). I got it changed, took off, connected with Dr. McB and off we went. About 10 miiles later I could hear that things weren’t right and I checked it and sure enough, the tire was mushy. I loaded it up with some CO2 and we started climbing.

OMG – climbing has never been so difficult! I got about 1500 feet up the mountain and I was red and sweaty and my HR was through the roof, I’m sure (only I don’t wear a HRM so I don’t really know). I could see McB way up ahead but I had to stop and sure enough the rear tire was totally squishy again. Pumped it up, rode on, met up with McB who was waiting and was happy enough to take a rest and then on we went. Lather, rinse, repeat once more and it this was getting annoying.

Here’s the good news, though. My recollection is that the last 2 hills before you get to where the roads that head up the 2 sides of the mountain join are steep and hard to climb. They were not. I was stunned to realized that I had reached the junction when I did so I declare VICTORY! I love it when the hills get easier because it means I really am getting stronger – yeah!

All thoughts of going higher got dumped due to my equipment issues so we headed down the north side, stopped for an iced latte and headed to the Sports Basement for some more CO2. Dr. McBikey got a flat on the way and was glad I was with him because he has no experience changing a tire although to his credit he had everything he needed (levers, tire and pump).

After I got home the big msytery was why, oh why did 2 tubes go flat? I took off the tire and checked every bit of the inner surface. I found 1 tiny slit but it was nothing that would puncture a tube. I checked the rim – nothing. Then I pumped up the tubes and submerged them only to discover that there were tiny rends in the seam of each. Cheap tubes? Poor installation? What’s your guess?

PSA –

I’d like to introduce you to a program called SportsTracks in the event you’ve never heard of it. It works with your Garmin and the cool thing it does is let you break the workout into pieces. You sort of have to get the hang of how to get the thing to break where you want it to but once you do it’s awesome! I was able to break up the run and ride portions of the Golden Bear Triathlon. Once I broke them up I exported them to GPX format and then imported them into MotionBased so that I now have this:

Ride:

Run:

Okay- so that’s a lot of work to be able to look at an elevation map but I love it! I’m a geek and technology that lets me play with numbers works for me.

Posted in Cycling, PSA, Racing | 2 Comments

You Know the Sport Has Gone Mainstream When…

Posted on May 18, 2008 by 21cm

I was looking at an ad for a very swanky, high rise condo building I found on the back cover of the New York Times Sunday Magazine today . The amenities for these condo units include 4 bedrooms (or 3 bedrooms and a library), 3 bathrooms a very generous dining/living area, a gallery (because of course we MUST have a gallery) and a huge kitchen with ‘grown up appliances’ (as opposed to those little wooden ones they have in the kindergarten classroom??)

It also listed an 11,000 sq foot triathlon training center. Seriously. Not a gym. Not a fitness center – a triathlon training center, complete with 3 pools.

I refuse to indulge the negative thoughts I have about this – welcome to the sport wealthy urbanites! It’s a ton of fun. Just please get a little road experience before race day.

(I love what that building does for the little church next to it *cough* . click the small image to get a better view)

Posted in triathlon | 16 Comments

Monday Monday – Golden Bear Race Report

Posted on May 11, 2008 by 21cm

The tagline to the Golden Bear Triathlon is ‘This Bear Bites’ and they are not kidding. I thought this race was way harder than Wildflower Short Course and I’ll show you why. Let’s compare and contrast.

A swim is a swim. My Wildflower swim is kind of legendary and will never be trumped (scroll to the bottom of that link for a quick view). The swim for Golden Bear was fine but slow for me and I’m not sure why. The lake is so small you had to swim the perimeter, then get out, run down the beach about 25 yards and do it again for a total of 1,000 meters. I would tell you exactly how long it took but they removed the clock before I finished!! One of a few penalties for being slow. I didn’t let it get me down, though and it was off to the bike.

Wildflower Bike Course elevation map:

You have that nasty, sharp up on Lynch Rd coming out of T1 but then it’s some up and some down and all in all it’s a pretty nice ride.

Now here’s the Golden Bear Bike elevation:

See you have that not so huge up coming out of T1 although it was more of a thigh burner than you might expect. Then you get some serious down that was way fun. It is steep and curvy to the point where they had monitors on the course telling you to slow down. Then you get some no big deal rolling stuff and then… just when you are getting tired you get some uuuuuppppp and some more up and then some down followed by some more up until you want to rip your legs off and toss them over the barbed wire fence into the cow pasture. And then it’s one more sharp, nasty up, teeny down and then UP again and you are thinking “I thought it was the THREE BEARS!! Where the eff did this last bear come from???” . Brutal. Then, when you finally get to start screaming downhill they flag you down and tell you turn right into T2. Bastards!

And then there’s the run. My recollection of the Wildflower run is mostly that it was so effing hot I got sick and walked almost the whole thing. I remember a hill or 2 at the begining and then miles of asphalt trail with no shade. I don’t remember a lot of uphill running, though. This map is fuzzy but here it is and I guess there was more up than I remembered but that’s what happens when you devolve into a death march:

The biggest problem is just when you’ve had enough you have to run down Lynch Hill and try not to have your legs tie themselves into knots. And then you’re done!

Here is the Golden Bear elevation map of the run we were supposed to have but the watershed people changed it. I forgot to reset my Garmin so all I have for an elevation map is the bike and the run together
Planned:

Actual:

Mostly what it felt like is climbing 11ty billion feet and finding no water at the water stops – just diluted Heed. That was punishment #2 for being slow. And then the return trip is mostly down – only it’s not. This was really brutal and I did walk the steep hills but I did my best to run everything else:

Okay – I might have walked that last hill and then burst through the trees running like I had run the whole thing – maybe.

Marty who owns the store that sponsors my race club was giving out medals and he smiled at me and asked, “how was it?” as he hung my medal around my neck and I looked up at him, all sweetness and light and said, “THAT WAS F#CKING HARD!”

The bike at Golden Bear was only 22.76 miles compared to a full 25 at Wildflower and the swim was short but the runs were the same.

Times: Wildflower – 4:39 Golden Bear 3:28 which included about 2 – 3 minutes of going the wrong way and having my bag go to the wrong guy in T2. Not a bad improvement, eh?

My race club, FMRC had a small but powerful showing. Our relay team took first and the women took 2nd in 35-39, 1st in 40-44, and 1st in 50-54* and the men took 2nd in 45-49 and I think that covers everyone who raced. We rule!

Trifreak did a great job with this inaugural race and are even going to return the bike shoes I left in T2 to my local running store, Forward Motion. I recommend their races to anyone.

* that was first out of 2 but be that as it may – I beat her and a win is a win!

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

Race Report – Golden Bear Triathlon

Posted on May 10, 2008 by 21cm

3:28:28 which included going the wrong way for a bit (probably cost me 2 minutes) and a mess in T2 where a girl gave my bag to someone else and I had to hunt it down.

Not bad for a beautiful Saturday AM. Go ME!

Posted in Racing | 24 Comments

Season Opener – Tomorrow!

Posted on May 9, 2008 by 21cm

I have my first Triathlon tomorrow. I’m racing The Golden Bear which is a 1K swim (2 loops with part of it coming out of the water and running to the entry!), 28K bike and a hilly 10K run on a trail. I think I’m ready. I know of 2 women in my AG and we are all pretty evenly matched so my strategy is to really kill it on the bike and try to get out ahead and stay there.

Wish me luck!

Posted in Racing, triathlon | 6 Comments

We Have a Winner!

Posted on May 8, 2008 by 21cm

I took the names of the people who are interested in winning The Wisdom of the Peaceful Warrior and put them on little pieces of paper and shook them up and picked one and the winner is….

The Black Knight!

Please ring in and send me your snail mail address in an email so I can get you the book. It might take a while to get there and we are behind schedule with this thing. We all know that a PLAN MUST BE ADHERED TO! So as usual, I’m screwing up the plan.

sigh..

Book review forthcoming.

Posted in Book Review | Comments Off on We Have a Winner!

Monday Monday – Life is Beautiful

Posted on May 5, 2008 by 21cm

This weekend I had my metric century ride up in Sonoma.

It was 4 hours of looking at this sort of thing

And maybe a little of this

It was one of those things where you ride for 10 miles gawking at the scenery and then stop for some food – maybe a 1/2 a banana and some M&Ms; and then you ride for another 15 miles picking out your favorite house and marveling on the splendor and beauty of life and then you stop for lunch where they custom make a sandwich for you and you can have cookies and pretzels and chips and fill up the bottles and then you go for another 10 or 12 miles and stop for another snack and then you do the last part which, of course, has the hardest hill but then you get to head downhill and go to a BBQ. Can you spell g-l-o-r-i-o-u-s?? It’s the sort of thing where if you aren’t careful you can gain a couple pounds by the time you finish.

Here’s the elevation map which makes it look way harder than it was. I don’t even remember that first hill but the second one is called Chalk Hill and takes some energy to get up, particularly when you’ve got 50 miles on your legs. I got up it, just fine, though even passing some people and leaving my friend Cindy in the dust and that’s a first, for sure.

I highly recommend you click here and get the map of this ride and then make a point of doing it yourself sometime – probably without all the support and food.

This ride was super fun for several other reasons, as well.
1). At check in we bumped into a woman we swim with who was thrilled to have some riding partners. I was pretty impressed with the pace she was setting and then, after the first stop she met up with the guys she rides with from Berkeley and I learned just how much she had been holding back. Once she hooked on with them she was gone like a shot.

2). At lunch I bumped into a friend from college I’ve been meaning to call. She is an avid rider and I’ve been thinking of calling her to go for a ride together. No excuses now!

3). Riding is a lot easier when you are lighter. As Greyhound pointed out I’ve improved my weight to power ratio and I really felt it.

4). It’s great to have some strategy for hill climbing. Thank you Monica! I was pretty awesome on those hills.

5). This was a ride, not a race and my average speed which was diluted by rest stops and slowing down in some spots to wait for my friend was 14.8 mph. That compares rather favorably to last years 11-ish. In fact, I did this 62 miles in 4:09 compared to last year’s Wildflower 25 mile ride in 2:06.

6). The circular part of this route is the same as Vineman 70.3. It starts a little different and ends a little different but mostly it’s the same and it is fabulous. I’ve told Jenny about 20 times how gorgeous this is – she is doing Vineman with me. We are going to have such a fine time! (if you are also doing Vineman 70.3 please let me know!)

7). I had 90 minutes of running on the schedule for Sunday and I whined about it all day thinking it would be awful. It was not – it was a great run and I averaged 10:40 mph which is great for me on any 8 mile run and especially good when I’ve had a long ride the day before.

8). I’m glad I got the sight-seeing out of the way so I can bust a move at Vineman. Jenny wants to do it together which means I’m going to have step it up quite a bit because that woman is a smokin’ fast triathlating ma-sheen!

9). There are no cars on the back roads of the wine country between 7:30 AM and 10:00 AM and then there aren’t many before noon. Bliss!

10). My first triathlon is Saturday – I’m feeling a PR coming on.

Posted in Cycling, Monday Monday | 11 Comments

One of the Many Advantages of De-Starching

Posted on April 30, 2008 by 21cm

I’ve mentioned that I’ve lost 6 pounds in the last 3 months, right? (about 100 times, I know – SORRY!)

One of the things I did was have a come to Jesus meeting with myself over how much whole grained goodness I enjoy and cut a bunch out. No granola for breakfast any more; I have a protein powder miilkshake made with water, berries and protein powder. No 2 slices of whole wheat bread sandwiches for lunch any more; I have a salad in pita bread now. No potatoes, rice or pasta for dinner any more; I eat other stuff.

Result? I am not one of these crazy people worried about a global rice or flour shortage. I’m pretty sure that the 1 pound bags I have of each will last just about until hell freezes over or until I’ve enjoyed enough occasions to make treats for other people to use them up, and that works for me.

Posted in Health | 10 Comments