Due to the wonders of modern technology – specifically the technology brought to you by Garmin (the Forerunner + MotionBased.com) I have been able to get a sneak preview of my Sunday 100K. I wanted to see how bad the hills are. The answer goes something like ‘what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger’. At least the start is close to sea level which is very important for an SLP like myself. Total climb is about 3,000 ft.

The Whole Ride (or pretty close to it)

A Hilly Bit

Coming up the Back Side of the Hilly Bit (which is where the big hill is)

A Pretty Part

All in all it should be a lovely ride and I’d like to give a shout out to our Triathlete Strategist and mentor, Bold, for giving me some good strokes for this. More later.

I’m late. It is Thursday, not Wednesday and I apologize for that (’cause I’m sure you all just wondering where the heck is my Hump Day Miscellany).

First up – Proof that I raised my son well.

Last week I got suited up for ride wearing my bike shorts and my Peets 40th Anniversary biking shirt My son looked at me and said, “You look really official. Representing for the 40 year olds!”

I love that boy.

Next up – My beautiful Ruby Pro just sold on eBay for $1725. Someone got a really great deal because that is a $4400 bike brand new. The seller claims it was only ridden for 2 weeks. I hope it isn’t hot. I knew it would sell for more money than I have in my bike budget but I did bid on it a couple of times. Oh, the heartache!!!!

Last up – I’m all in for the metric century. All 62 miles and all of the hills. I will ride my own bike because my friend’s bike’s brakes are not working that well. I would not want to come screaming down a hill toward an intersection on that bike because I don’t think it could stop in time. Besides, I like my bike even if it does weigh a bit much.

If you look at my last 7 workouts on the right you might notice something missing. Running. I have racked up a total of 3 miles since I ran my marathon on July 30. 3 miles. They weren’t even very good miles as I recall. I think I need to do something about that but I’m not sure exactly when I’ll get

hahaha… so funny.

I need some cowbell, people. Way more cowbell.

I took off on my ride today fully armed with the knowledge that was going down and there was no getting around it. Life did not disappoint.

I took off at 5:50, headed for our 6:15 rendez-vous. I was very diligent to clip out when I got anywhere near a stopping point – HA! I had this down. I WOULD NOT FALL! I met up with my friends and we took off with me, as usual, working my ass off to keep up but keep up I did for a good 10 miles through relatively bucolic areas of big houses and manicured lawns. I did not fall but my friends started to get away from me.

I finally got to a big intersection and of course they had gotten through and were waiting on the other side. I clipped out and waited and waited and waited for the green left turn arrow and it never came so I decided to ride over to the pole toward my left and push the crossing button. Only problem was I so aggravated by the light not changing and so hell bent to hit the button that forgot my feet were in jail and when I pulled up to the pole and stopped I fell right over to my right. Whump!

I picked myself up and looked at the bike and inspected it for damage. I noticed a screw on the sidewalk but it didn’t look like it belonged on the bike so I left it there. When the light changed I walked across (too shaky to get on the bike) and declared to my friends, “At least I got THAT over with” thinking I had had my fall for the day. If only. When I calmed down I tried to clip in with my left foot and just couldn’t do it. What was wrong? Was I so aggravated and so full of adrenaline that I had jus lost it? I tried and tried and tried but could not get the shoe back in the clip. I finally took the shoe off to check the cleat and lo and behold it was minus a screw and turned sideways. Too bad I ignored that screw. My friend went and fetched it, I fixed my shoe and we were off again.

We rode and rode and rode and I got hungrier and hungrier and crankier and crankier. Finally we stopped to have an energy bar break. As I pulled up to stop I pulled my right foot free, slowed to an almost stop and leaned to the left – Whump! Down again. Friend B thought it was all her fault for talking to me while I stopped and Lord knows I’d like to blame her but no – it was the 21CM spaz show all the way.

At this point I really was a little shaken up about the whole thing. I did NOT want to fall again. As we started climbing out in the country I got really nervous remembering someone’s (Nytro? MoJo? Juls?) tale of falling over from losing momentum on a hill. I started having a bit of a mental breakdown and decided the way to deal was to clip out and ride with the arches of my feet on the pedals. This is a really hard way to ride a bike, my friends but it gave some peace of mind and for a while it got me through.

I continued to grapple with a crisis of confidence for several miles. My friends were way ahead of me since they have been riding regularly all summer and are much stronger than me, anyhow. I grumbled to myself about what a wuss I am, how incapable I am, how much I hate riding long distance and on and on and on. My legs were tired and dammit I just ran a damned marathon – what was I doing going on a 50 mile ride. Blah, blah, blah on and on. On the plus side we were out in the middle of nowhere and it was beautiful. I finally got annoyed with myself for all that grumbling and tried to stop and then my energy bar started to kick in and I was fine.

I found my friends at an intersection helping a couple of other cyclists plan a route. I got the scoop on how to get back and told them to just take off and not worry about me any more. I really didn’t want to hold them up.

The thing about biking that makes it harder than running sometimes is that you can go really far really fast but when you get tired you can’t just give up and start walking. You can, but it might take a really, really, really long time to get home, especially since you are toddling along on shoes that are not meant for walking. I have to say that 40 miles into this ride I was sick to death of making my legs go round and round and round and really wanted it to stop. Besides, my groove thang was getting pretty sore. Other than that I felt okay and I figured out that I wouldn’t fall over going uphill as long as I kept pedaling so pedal I did. Round and round and round and round. The scenery was very pretty and I knew that soon enough I would come to Peets, I could get my groove thang off that seat and my life would be good again.

48.75 miles after I started out I had a latte in my hand – ahhhhh… I called a friend to see if she wanted to join me and take me and my bike home but she was busy and that was good. I finished my latte and started the ride home and felt much better about that than I would have felt if I had taken a ride.

Coffee fortified and buoyant with my proximity to the end of the line I took off and cranked on home in record time. I even passed a few people on the way! When I got home I went to wash the copious quantities of bike grease off my legs including grease in the shape of the chain. When I started scrubbing it off it hurt! It wasn’t just bike grease – I had a boo boo. That dark area is a bruise. Obviously I fell right on the big gear.

Lessons learned:
1). When in doubt – clip out! With both feet
2). As long as you keep pedaling you won’t fall over
3). I need to eat sooner than my friends which is odd because they are both really lean and I am not so lean but apparently my fat is stuck pretty hard and not available and I run out of gas faster than they do.
4). I need to quit bitching when the going gets tough. I just annoy myself.
5). I don’t really like long rides. I just don’t. 30, maybe 40 miles is okay but after that I’m done.

Next up is either a metric century or the 35 miles alternative next weekend. I just can’t decide. What do you think?

Here is a Google Earth shot of today’s 59 mile ride

My bike is a Trek 7300 Hybrid bike with an aluminum frame, straight handle bars and grip shifters. When I bought it the tires were chunky trail/road type tires and it had BMX pedals on it. I also had a spiffy rack on the back for which I bought a bag. Can you spell N-E-R-D? However, I was okay with that because I had very little experience biking so it was easy for me to get started and I rather liked having all that cargo space. The fact that I had to haul all that weight over hill and dale didn’t really occurrto me until I’d done for a while.

When I rode my first metric century last March I was able to ride a high end, all carbon demo bike – a Specialized Ruby Pro.

Suweet! That thing weighs about as much a couple of breaths of hot air and it has great components on it. I still needed straight pedals on the thing because I didn’t have bike shoes and didn’t know how to use clipless pedals. I sort of felt like I defiled the bike but I really enjoyed riding it (as much as you can enjoy a ride in 30 mph headwinds and rain).

A couple of weeks ago I put skinny slicks on my bike and took the rack off the back. Nice! It weighed a little less and moved a little faster.

I am riding another metric century next weekend and my friend E lent me her Specialized Sequoia Elite

which is a much nicer bike than mine. She has clipless pedals and rather than take them off the bike and replace them with my stupid BMX pedals I am trying to learn to use these things. People – it is scary.

I bought some bike shoes and some Shimano pedals for my bike, intsalled them, put the bike in the trainer and practiced getting in and out of the not clips (which feel a lot like clips to me!). Not bad. I tried friend’s bike and it was even easier. Then I decided to road test my ability to actually ride a bike with these things but I wanted to use my bike in case I fell because I don’t want to trash my friend’s bike.

Did I mention how frightened I am of these things? I managed to get one foot in the pedal, push off and much to my surprise I got the other foot clipped pretty quick. Then I headed for a hill because I wanted to see if I could get out of the pedal in time to catch myself as I slowed to a crawl and started to fall over. Once I started up that hill there was no way I could do anything but pump harder – I was terrified. I got up the hill huffing and puffing and then decided to try to clip out. Twist, twist, pull AHHHHH!!! I’m STUCK! WTF???!!! Pop! I came out. Not good – not good at all. So I popped my left foot out with about the same degree of difficulty and tried getting back in. That didn’t go so well either. Crap. I practiced getting in and out as I rode home and managed not to fall off but I can’t say as my confidence is at an all time high.

This afternoon I will try road testing E’s bike. Hopefully I can get the hang of this real soon because tomorrow I’m going for a long ride and I really prefer not to do it on skinned knees from getting stuck in my pedals. Any helpful suggestions for how I can come up the clipless pedal ramp in a hurry? I need help, people!!

I figured it out!

I loosened up my clips and they are much easier to get out of. Then I got on my friend’s bike for a little road test dressed in rolled up jeans, a t-shirt and socks that have little bugs and kisses all over them and say ‘Love Bug’ over and over. Hot-a? Not-a! Look-a like-a Dork-a! But it was a successful test and I am going to ride my friend’s bike tomorrow. Please wish me luck because I’m still scared witless!

Thanks for the input on my Triathlon question.

The longer of the 2 is on Sept 17, the shorter is on Sept 30. If I want to spend way too much money entering events I could do both. As it is I think I’ll do that Tri For Real (the longer one) to see my improvement which will be considerable. Of this I am confident.

Then, if I really, really want to I can probably do the other one since there are 2 all women’s triathlons on the same day in the same area and I doubt they will both sell out.

Today I am supposed to ride 1/2 way up the local “mountain” which would be about 1500 feet over about 2 or 3 miles. It is supposed to be 95 degrees or so. We’ll see.

I have a lot of things to post if only I could remember what they are. Stay tuned.

First up – I don’t really come in the back of the pack as my intro says. I looked at my marathon results last year and found that my age grade is 47%. What is this Age Grade scoring? It is a WAVA thing that compares you to other runners like yourself which really beats the hell out of comparing myself to a super star Kenyan runner.

What is Age-Graded Scoring?
Basically, Age-Graded Scoring allows all individuals within a race to be "scored" against each other. That is done by first comparing the individual's finish time at that particular race distance to an "ideal" or best time (not necessarily the "world record") achievable for that individual's age and gender.
Age-Graded Scoring utilizes statistical tables to compare the performances of individual athletes at different distances, between different events, or against other athletes of either gender and/or of any age. Confusing? Perhaps looking at how Age-Graded Scoring applies to road racing may help clear things up.

I got the 47% grade both last year and this year and since I came in 12 minutes slower this year it must have been either a tougher day to run or a wimpier crowd. Whatever.

I have results from all of the sanctioned runs I’ve ever done and someday I’ll share them. I really wish I could remember where I found it. If you know please remind me. I copied the results into a Word doc but now I can’t remember what the website was.

—- Next —
Rice cookers rule! I love my rice cooker because it knows when the rice is done cooking and sets itself from ‘cook’ to ‘warm’. It is important to add enough water, though because if you put brown rice in there and only add double the water (i.e. 1 cup rice and 2 cups water) it is still a little crunchy when it’s “done”. I do love being able to run to the store for a quart of Ben And Jerry’s some more tofu while the rice is cooking, and not have to worry about burning it.

—-Dark Chocolate Lowers Blood Pressure! ———

I learned something really interesting and wonderful the other day. For me it is even better than the ‘red wine is good for your heart’ legend because I don’t care all that much for red wine. Dark Chocolate Lowers Blood Pressure! Isn’t that fabulous.? Of course my blood pressure typically runs about 60 over 90 but still – a health nugget is a health nugget, right? I have no idea about daily quantities and frankly I’d like to stay in the dark on that count. The headline was good enough for me!

———–BUT MOST IMPORTANT ————

I’m looking for some input on which triathlon I should do. I have 2 choices. One of them is an all women’s teeny tri – 500 yd swim, 11 mile bike and 3.1 mile run on Sept 30.

The other is the same one I did last time which is 700 yd swim 18 mile bike and 4 mile run. I came in 4th to last in a miserable 2:31:05. I was on a Schwinn Varsity 10 speed that I had ridden 3 times just before the event and those were my first 3 rides in 15 years. I had not been running much at all. There is a very good chance I could improve my time in this event.

What would you do?

Here’s to getting to the short side of the work week!

It is 10 AM and I am home from my ride, fully loaded with a baker’s dozen of bagels and some low fat schmear (’cause I went to Noah’s for the bagels and they like to pretend like their bagels have something to do with real, Jewish , NYC bagels. They do not).

I feel fabulous. The ride was just spectacular. My friends took me out to a place where there are no cars and no other people (because the smart ones were still in bed) – just us, our bikes and the wild turkeys of Sunol Valley. I had no idea the wild turkey population was so big. They were everywhere, stupid and oblivious, the way turkeys are. If you wanted to pick one off you could probably just saunter over and whack it on the head.

I only went for 30 miles because that seemed sufficient at this point since I haven’t ridden more than 10 at a time since May and since I just ran a marathon a week ago. I did do the big hill part of this ride. I think it went for about 3 or 4 miles up hill but I’m not sure about the grade. I’ll have to see if Lady Garmina can get a bead on that. The important thing is that I did it – every inch of it.

Did I already say I feel fabulous because I do. I’m going to take a shower, put on something comfy, toss a load of laundry in the machine and make myself a bagel and a latte and start reading the paper. And it will only be 11 AM when get there. Life is good.

Thank you Jeanne for the early AM html lesson. I’m too lazy for that, though. If Firefox can’t hack the load I refuse to pick up the slack. For now an unapologetic IE user who is very good with virus scanners and pop blockers and spyware removers and that’s just the way it is. Bold, it’s nice to know I have some company in my refusal to shun the Gods of Redmond.

I’m sorry to all of you FireFox fans. I know you think it is awesome either because it isn’t Microsoft or because it is safer or something but things don’t look right in FireFox. They just don’t. It’s behind the standards or something.

That nicely formatted list of bad foods I ate with caloric content in a nice, clean column runs into the margins in FireFox. It looks perfect in IE. All I did was use the ‘pre’ tag and make the font big enough to read.

I hate FireFox.

I also hate that I am getting up at 5AM on a Sunday morning to go for a bike ride. It had better be very, very scenic is all I can say.

On the plus side I was a really good eater today. Fruit, whole wheat bread, fish, corn, green tea. Yeah me. Oh- and a glass of wine. So double yeah.

Heck no! After I blogged about my horrible eating I went for a 10 mile, easy bike ride and burned up a whole 300 calories! To celebrate I ordered pizza (the world’s most perfect food) for dinner and ate 3 slices. When I got done with that I needed to go get some milk at 7 – 11 and found myself overwhelmed with a need for a Snapple Ice Tea with Lemon – yum! And yes, Ms. Firefly, I was a little short on the fruits and vegetables yesterday although I did have vegetarian pizza with peppers, onions, mushrooms, olives and sun dried tomatoes so all was not lost.

Today I’m all better. Today I am going to eat Ruby Red Grapefruit and weeds (salad and no, I don’t use fatty Ranch dressing on it) and drink green tea. I’ll probably eat some whole wheat bread, too. I actually feel like eating well. I think I out foxed my body by just completely saturating my sugar receptors. HA!

Tomorrow I am going on a killer bike ride with my biker friends. I’m guessing we will do 40 or 50 miles because we have a metric century to prepare for. They have been riding big hills twice a week while I trained for the marathon so this should be interesting. I haven’t been on a long, hard ride since ….. gulp….. May 6 when I ran 8 miles and rode 35 up in Napa. As I recall I felt like I was on the brink of an injury every time I rode my bike so I stopped riding to focus on marathon training (how do you IronMan people do this??). It seems like forever ago. Anyhow, this ride will be really interesting and will certainly reverse the ill effects of yesterdays sugar binge. Stay tuned.