A Humbling Bike Ride and A Fall

Even though everyone was ahead and waiting I had to 

stop to take a couple of pictures of the Champlain Bridge.

You can see how overcast it was.

Saturday I had a humbling bike ride.  I rode with 6 people and they were all way ahead of me the entire ride.  It did push me and I had a great ride too but I was amazed at their speed.  My friend, C, was one of them so obviously she holds back when she rides with me.  We ended up doing 50 miles and it was the first time since I broke my wrist I hit that number. I had gotten close last week but not there.  (I actually rode a mile around the parking lot when I got to my car to hit this!  Does anyone else do that?  C's husband was doing the same thing.) The day was overcast which was great because it wasn't too hot. When we started it was about 50 degrees but we quickly warmed up.  We took a route that I have taken before although not always all of it and in fact we missed a small portion yesterday.

My speedy friends on top of the bridge.

 It's hills that I need to work on as that is when I would really lose them.  I was pleased with my pace overall esp. for 50 miles.  (14.2)  One of the women who went (who has only been cycling this year) was going over Lincoln Gap today and coming back over App. Gap. These are two major gaps in our area and she had also done this last week.  The back side of Lincoln Gap has a grade of 26%.  I was in awe.

We rode into Crown Point Historical Site to have a snack.  This is looking

back at the bridge from there. I was thrilled because I saw a car

from South Dakota.  Yes, I am still playing that game. I have 3 more 

to see.

Oh yes, there is a story with this.

As I was turning on to the bridge from our stop C yelled something which made me think I needed to be somewhere else.  This is where I tend to get in trouble. Before I knew what was happening I was falling - clipped in - and  not unclipping.  I did think enough to lean my body into the fall and not put my hand out. It was like I was falling in slow motion.  My side has a tiny ache in it today but other than this scraped knee I was completely fine.  Thank Goodness!  I will tell you it scared me in the short amount of time before I knew it was fine. I rode the rest of the way - probably around 20 miles with no problem whatsoever.

 I didn't come home so humbled that I am putting away my bike shoes for the winter.  I actually came home completely juiced to get out there and do another long ride.  I spent the evening pouring through my bike books looking for a route that is about 50 miles I can do next Saturday.
The women on yesterday's ride are off to the seacoast for a century which I declined to do.  I don't think I am ready but will get there another year.  I found a few different routes although the one I picked  out may be one I should save to do with friends.  I need to get after my husband to get a new bike so he will want to go more with me.  Some of the routes I am looking at would really appeal to him. I showed him a 35 mile one and he agreed he would like to try it as a lot of it goes along Lake Champlain in the northern part of the state.

Tomorrow I am heading to Sand Road which is fairly flat and a place I like to work on my speed. I'll see what I can pull out. It is the best looking day weather wise of the next few coming up.  C is going with me if she can leave work in time.

Coming into the finish a few years ago.

On another note I have been thinking about a September race. There is a race next weekend that I did once and liked.  It's a 10 K and it goes along my beloved bike path for a fair amount of it.  The only thing is I certainly wouldn't be tapering as I am heading off on my bike again on Saturday.  Later I realized that I have done a September race - that would the last triathlon I did in NH.  That counts!

I NEVER Skip A Workout and Yet Today I Did

As the title says, I don't skip workouts. I really don't.  I have a ridiculously strong work out ethic sometimes to my detriment.  But today..........I skipped a workout and planned it last night.  I had my swim bag all packed and suddenly decided I wasn't going to do it.  But I was not a slacker, I got up in the dark of the morning to run.  I just didn't do a double.

This was my first full week back at school and fitting in 9 workouts is tough.  But, I am not a slacker. I am still doing 8 workouts when I miss one.  I had a graduate level course tonight and fitting in one more thing was going to be very hard.  Impossible no but not really reasonable.  But I still feel guilty. Well, I did. I seem to be getting rid of it with each passing second.

Originally I was going to swim this morning and fit in this morning's run somewhere else. That was the problem.  I could run Saturday morning but I plan to bike. I plan to go on a long bike ride. I plan to go on a long bike ride with some very fast friends.  So it didn't make sense to get up extra early to squeeze in a run and not be fresh when I went on the bike ride.

I could have run this morning and gone swimming tomorrow morning but that would mean I had no day completely off this week.  Nope.  I get tired and then I get grumpy.

I have really only missed workouts in the past when I have had surgery or I am taking time off after a marathon.  Sometimes I make up a missed workout the next week.  This time I am NOT going to let myself do that.  I will only do one swim this week and that is okay. I may do only one swim each week all of September. I have no more triathlons coming up for months. :(  I had already told myself I was going to just relax and enjoy swimming in the pool this month before I tried to make some improvements.  I had also decided my main goal this fall was going to be biking.  I wanted one weekend day for long rides.  And nothing else.  It is hard to make this happen even with only one swim.  I am still doing 4 runs and 3 bikes a week.  But I don't want to drop those.  Biking will end when I can't stand the cold but that is a ways off and I am going to sign up for a duathlon!  I can't have no races to look forward to.

So yesterday when I made this decision I was totally obsessing over it.  (Doing a lot of that lately.) But now I am okay with it.  One of my plans had been to run after my graduate class tonight.  Does that sound sane?  Get up at 5, swim, work all day, go to my course, run at 7:00 when it ends and then go home??? Crazy that I even considered this.  Completely unplanned 5 of us from my school taking the course went to a local establishment and had one drink to relax before heading home.   Much better plan!

Okay.  I have talked that all out and now I can enjoy my weekend with one bike ride and one run!

From a fall bike ride two years ago.  Not much color

yet this year.

Triathlon Obsessions - All About Swimming Surprise Surprise

Triathlon training brought out a few obsessions.  I was thinking about them as I swam back and forth and back and forth in the pool this morning. Not much else to do.  Here's what they were.

• One of the first things I obsessed over was what wet suit to buy. Should I get sleeveless or full sleeved?  I asked bloggers. One blogger posted it on Facebook and got many opinions. As with so many things there seemed to be an equal amount that swore you had to have each one.  I talked to my swim instructor at the time about it and went with what she said.  I figured she had seen me swim and knew the water temps I would be swimming in.  What did I get? Sleeveless.  How do I think it went?  I think it was the perfect decision FOR ME.  Most of the time I didn't even need a wet suit temperature wise so I didn't need full sleeves.  And I did feel very constricted in it and feel it would have been worse with full sleeves.  
• Then I obsessed over trying it on and even on opening the package. I believe it was at my house for 3 months before I opened it.  It was way past the friendly "you can return this if it doesn't fit" date.  I had a friend come with me to the lake who knew more about wet suits than I did.  With some help it went on just fine.  I must admit though that every time I put it on I worry this will be the time it doesn't fit.
• Still on the wetsuit......I also obsessed over getting it off. I was heard to say more than once that when I did my first triathlon I would breathe easily once my wet suit was off.  Not when I was done swimming........I even had to have the wet suit off before I relaxed.  What did I find out?  I have never had a problem getting it off. Sometimes I remember to use PAM and sometimes I don't but it has never been hard.

• I also obsessed over open water swim.  I put that off along with trying on the wet suit and then the whole broken wrist thing happened so they both had to wait even longer.  Once I got in the water I found out I liked it.  I liked not having to turn around all the time.  I liked being outside, the lake I was at was gorgeous.  I am a bit obsessive about the distance I cover in any sport so I didn't like not knowing how far I was going.  But OWS - not bad at all.  
• A big obsession - one of my last ones I still had before the actual triathlon was fear of what was in the water with me.  Before I signed up for a tri I tried to find out about the water. Was it weedy?  I googled bodies of water trying to get this information or read race reviews.  I must say the three bodies of water I swam in were great. Plus once I was swimming in the tri itself - I didn't think about this at all. I was way too busy thinking about getting from the start to the finish as fast as I could so I could get on the bike and have some fun and be done with the whole swimming part.
• I also obsessed over all the horror stories I had heard about swimming with masses of people and getting mowed over.  In my first two triathlons I was in the last wave and simply got at the back of the pack and that worked quite well. But in my more recent tri I was in a middle wave with many more people in it and many more strong fast burly men swimming after me.  Major panic.  This was not fun but nowhere near as bad as I thought. Yes, I got an elbow in the back with a downward push but I never went under and managed not to be in the way too much. I actually even passed someone. I don't know that this fear has gone away but it has certainly lessened. 

Putting the swim behind me!

• Do you obsess over anything work out or race related?  I am really fairly relaxed before running races but I have not reached that state at all with triathlons.  Looking at the swim course always brings out some panic in me.  Thankfully it is the part that is first and I can put it behind me. 

A Wildly Windy Ride

I thought I had already done some windy rides in the islands this summer but Saturday's ride beat them all. It was the easily the windiest day I have ever ridden. We knew it was going to be windy but didn't expect the extreme winds to come so soon. When we started out it was windy but the difference between the beginning of the ride and the end was dramatic.  More than once I did wonder if we should continue but I used the teenage logic that my friends were riding still so it must be okay.  If I had been alone I may have headed back to the car sooner.

My husband had promised he would ride with me in my favorite islands. When I mentioned it to my riding friend, Cathy, she said she would get her husband to come also.  It wasn't a sunny day but the temperature was perfect. We parked farther away from our usual spot to add some miles. When you ride with Cathy you always add miles. I originally told my husband 25 then it changed to 35.  He doesn't ride much and I didn't want to do more than he wanted.  So off we went being treated to beautiful vistas right away.

My favorite spot

Fresh and eager to ride

Even in the beginning of the ride I was being careful with the crosswinds. It felt a bit like I could be swept off my bike.  So downhills weren't as fast as usual. The water had white caps and didn't look very friendly for small sailboats. 

 I never felt like we had a true tailwind but the beginning of the ride was certainly the easiest.  There weren't as many bikers as most Saturdays in the islands.  We also decided to cross the drawbridge and go into North Hero. Cathy thought we should go to the end and come back but I suggested a shorter ride out to investigate a peninsula we could see but one we had not ridden on. It was stunningly gorgeous but we couldn't go all the way to the end. We ended at  a local YWCA camp that was hosting a wedding.  (I cannot imagine what it was like there when the storms hit.  Poor people, I hope they headed inside.)

When we headed back toward South Hero it was pretty difficult going with the wind against us. We finally got to the road that took us to the West Shore Road but then we had to deal with the cross winds. It was wild. I took a picture of one of many flags we saw flapping in the wind.  

When we got to West Shore Road it felt a little more protected and less windy. I stopped to take this very Vermont looking shot. 

I was looking forward to our ferry ride to New York as I love it when the seas are rough!  It did not disappoint.  We tucked out bikes into a protected area and stayed there with them. I did some walking around but I didn't want to get soaked as we had a lot of riding left to do.  When we rode around the peninsula in New York we actually had a tail wind for awhile and it was glorious. Soon enough we were headed back into the wind but with some great entertainment. There were many many para sailing and sailboarders out. We stopped several times to watch them.  In one spot there were easily 50 cars parked on both sides of the road, the majority from Quebec. I assumed it might be some kind of sail boarding club. They looked thrilled with the conditions.  

The lake was full of sail boarders. It looks hard!

Trying to show the effects of the wind.

We got on the ferry to go back to Vermont and the way back was even more of a rocking and rolling ride. The skipper had us tuck our bikes out in the open next to cars rather than on the covered side.  We hooked them over the railing and went up top.  Two guys standing in the front of the ferry got drenched within seconds.  I have to say the ferry rides were one of my favorite parts of the day. We did watch a large sailboat that looked like it was in trouble but it righted itself and continued on. I was delighted with the ferry but would not have wanted to have been on a small boat.

The water comes up over the deck.

A great day with my husband!

The bikes are hooked and safe

When we got off the ferry and were going across the island it was very pleasurable OR not as much wind.  We then had a trek straight into the wind back to the car. We had found out at the ferry that the winds were 25 - 30 mph with stronger gusts and expected to be at 40 mph soon.  It truly wasn't too bad until we reached the causeway to cross the lake back to our car.  All of us had separate thoughts that we might have to get off and walk the wind was so strong.  I unclipped for a ways as I thought if I was going down I didn't want to be clipped in. When I did get back to my car I had 45.8 miles done. Ordinarily I would spin around the parking lot to get that to 46 but I was done. Again - we all did the same thing - no finishing off those miles!  So overall it was  a very fun ride in spite of or even because of the wind. It was a great day to be out enjoying the elements and taking what Mother Nature was throwing at us and coming out ahead.  I did think as we were talking at our cars that we would not have set out in these winds had they been that bad at the beginning but none of us quit once  we were in it.  

Later that day there were tornado warnings in the Islands - just like in many parts of the East.  

Three Things Thursday

1. There was an article in our county paper about the Lake Dunmore Triathlon and guess who was mentioned in the article?  That would be me!  It named local athletes who did well and I was in there. Woot!  Woot! Go me!

Our chocolate milk stop, not a hard place to rest.

2. Monday I went for a bike ride with my friend, Cathy. It could not have been a more gorgeous day in Vermont.  We went 32 miles and I have to say I was exhausted when I was done. (It was the day after my triathlon and I did run in the morning too.  Got to take advantage of those non work days.) But I love riding with Cathy, I pick up my pace when I do even though we weren't hurrying.  We went on one of her favorite routes which I need to make one of my regular  routes.  I know my husband would like this route and I need to remember the way and take him on it.  I sped up a couple of times, the first was for a warning of a scary dog.  Turned out the dog must have been inside his house.  Then I also sped up when I saw my first live reptile of the season and screamed like the girl I am.  Yuck!

I told Cathy I got passed the day before on the steep parts of the hill when people stood up. So she had me practice standing up going up hills.  It really tired me out.  I do need to get comfortable with it, seems like it could be a goal for next year.

The best part of the ride was our stop for chocolate milk!  Local dairy, super good!

3. I have been exhausted each school day after work.  EXHAUSTED.  It is not a physical job to teach school but it is a mentally exhausting one to be "on" all the time.  You pretty much need to be prepared for anything to happen.  You need to know where 25 kids are at all times and what they are doing or not doing.  You don't want to let that one mischievous kid (who am I kidding when I say one) go too far and drag half the class along with him or her into chaos.

My point is I have felt not even a little bit like exercising when I'm leaving work.  Not one bit.  I so prefer getting it done in the morning.  But yesterday I went to the gym - first time in months - and have to say it was a decent workout.  Today I could not face the gym again but went on a bike ride - a short easy one but it was wonderful.  Wonderful!

I went swimming in the morning yesterday and for some reason (morning?) that is easy to do.  It is nice to just swim and not race.  I can so easily swim 600 yards, continuous freestyle in the pool.  Someday that will happen in a lake.  The ocean.......never.

Plans for a delightful ride this weekend and I think Mr. AJH is going to join us!

Do you have exciting weekend plans?  Does the return of a new school year make anyone else exhausted?  My life has always revolved around the school year more than the calendar year.

Circle Triathlon Race Report

I think this was the last triathlon of the season for me which is very sad.  But my plan for the fall is to run some races and bike as much as I can.

Walking around campus on Saturday.

This tri was the biggest one I have been in.  There were 204 individuals and several relay teams.  It was on Squam Lake in NH which is where On Golden Pond was filmed. (It's an old but good movie if you haven't seen it.)  I came to the tri with a friend from college as our old school was just 6 miles down the road. We spent Saturday walking around campus and visiting some old haunts.  I picked up my race stuff which was a good move as I was totally ready Sunday morning. 

Much to my surprise on Sunday it was raining.  It wasn't in the forecast and it never rains this summer so I didn't even think about it. I did observe what other people did because of the rain so I would be better prepared another time.  In the end everything was quite wet and filthy but during the race itself I didn't care.

The way the waves were set up in this tri surprised me as they were by when you registered not age or gender.  This meant I was in the third wave out of 5 or 6  and many faster swimmers would be mowing me down in the lake!  It definitely made me nervous and I ended up doing a lot more breaststroke than free.  I didn't like being near a lot of people in the water although I did like that in the bike and run.  I ended up swimming in 12:28 - 400 yards which put me 161/204.  It was okay but I feel like I could have done better.  

Getting marked - thinking about the swim

I manage to get it on yet again.

Very worried.

Lots of swimmers......

I'm out there somewhere.

I'm not used to all these other swimmers around me.

Very glad to be done.

The transition included a run up the beach and road over many sharp hurting stones in bare feet.  I took a very long time in T1 again - 4:27. I don't have this down at all.  

Then I headed out on the bike.  Before the swim the sun came out briefly but during the bike ride there was a downpour.  As I said I liked being around a lot of bikers.  The race described the bike as hilly and challenging and it was.  Because of the rain the  downhills were rather challenging too. There were some very sharp turns.  It was more the steepness of the hills than the number of them that made them hard for me. Some people walked and others traversed the hills which seemed very inefficient. I need to learn to stand as that is when people would get ahead of me.  There was lots of passing - both of me and by me.  I had one woman I tried to keep up with and it really helped.  The bike was 12 miles and it took me 52:19 which is about what it took me to ride 14 last weekend.  My place was 138/204.   

Happy to be headed out on the bike.  At this point

it isn't raining.

12 hilly miles later I'm back at transition.

The transition was okay.  I was glad to start running. It felt good right from the start without the usual tired dead legs.  When I reached the first mile I could see my pace wasn't much over 9 which was great. The run was only 2.7.  Again, there were more people around which really helps for picking up the pace.  Truthfully I feel more inspired to push and pass on the bike. When I run I seem to settle into a pace and work hard to keep it.  Even though it was rainy at times and wet there were people out cheering us on.  I was excited to hit the last half mile or so for running and see people coming in on the bike.  I certainly wasn't last.  I ended up doing the run in 25:19 for a pace of 9:25 which is my fastest tri pace.  My place was 129/204.  Happy!

I'm headed out of transition and it's time to run.

I see my friend,  Kay.

All done and coming in.

I was surprised but thrilled to get a medal at the end. There were also some cool water bottles. After I had mine I turned around and saw a little kid reach into the boat holding them, drink out of one, and put it back!  I waited for a bit for results but I was too cold and wet plus my friend had already put  in a good effort watching and I wanted her to want to do it again.  So we headed out - the car was very close because we got there early.  We had opted for late check out at the hotel which was the best thing ever as I was extremely cold and filthy.

My overall place was 147/204 and my time was 1:36:21.  My age group placement was 3/7. I love it and next year I age up!  

Leaving on the covered bridge we went through twice.

LOVE the shirt and the saying.

With my friend, Kay.

This souvenir is from the night before!  Visiting

an old haunt! There was a blue moon

special!  The owner was in my college

class.

So I am feeling a little sad to have no other tri lined up but I have a feeling next summer will be rather full of them.  Because I am definitely hooked on this new love!