AWESOME!

It's Saturday, and I am fucking tired, but happy! I am TRAINING, it is HARD, the weather is BEAUTIFUL and I'm EXHAUSTED!

14 hours through today; tomorrow I'm going to try and pound out 68 miles on LGL.

Today I rode 2:15 on the Bitch, then ran :40, then swam :20. The ride was fairly easy stuff, although I did crank up the watts whenever I could. In retrospect, I am sure it will be a GOOD thing that I rode easy today. When I started running, I felt like crap, like leaden legs, like puking, like I didn't want to keep going. But I forced myself, and went out against the wind, hoping I might gain an advantage on the way home. I felt like I was running in slow motion, but it turns out I ran 8:15/mile??? Where the hell did that come from? Oh, yeah, I guess running 4 days in a row will do that. The swim was just to recover from the shit.

I washed Bitchie, since I hadn't given her a good scrub down since last September--when I returned from Miami last November, it was too cold outside for me to wash her outdoors, so I only gave her a "sponge bath." I know she appreciated the cleaning today, and then I dropped her off at the bike shop for her annual tuneup. I also took a box of cannolis for the guys at the shop, and I know they are totally appreciated! I joked with all of them: "Leave the bike; take the cannoli." Extra points if you know what movie a line like that came from.

I'm a bit pissed that I can't really fit 2 "normal size" bottles in cages on LGL--I am not sure what I'm going to do about that, but I am sure there will be some sort of custom solution. DAMN ITALIAN BIKE WITH SMALL FRAME!

On a good note, I weighed the Bitch and also La Gazza Ladra to compare notes. Bitch weighs 21.6 lbs. (probably 3 less with race wheels on) and LGL weighs in at 17, so noticeably lighter.

At one point today while I was riding, the song, "I Think I Love You" by the Partridge Family came into my head. What was THAT about? Although I modified the lyrics to "I think I'm Hungry" and proceeded to down a gel.

EVERY cyclist I saw today had this huge grin on their face. It made it almost to 80 degrees today, although I was riding when it was still cool--in the 60's--and I was wearing shorts and a short-sleeved jersey and everyone else had tights and long shirts on. I guess I must run hot or something.

I'm getting a suntan, and at least when I look at myself in the mirror I don't think I look quite so disgusting. AGING SUCKS! But then again, I HATE the way I look in the winter, and spring and summer bring higher humidity which my skin absolutely loves and just being outside and riding my bikes and running even when I feel crappy and then the world seems right.

Another thought I had today was that you have to every so often think you are AWESOME. Think about all the awesome-ness you have in whatever areas of your life, and celebrate how AWESOME you are. I had that feeling for awhile today, and it made me think how sad it is for someone to go through life never feeling that way. Even if all it is is that you feel AWESOME right at that moment. That's what living in the moment is all about. Giving yourself unlimited opportunities to feel AWESOME, so that you are able to seize them and feel the AWESOMENESS that is you and your life and everything. Especially when there is so much bad and evil and sadness that also goes on in life (that you need to experience, too), you need to be open to the AWESOMENESS or else you will miss it. Sometimes you have deferred AWESOMENESS, as for me today while I was running I felt like SHIT, but I persevered (which is one of the things that makes me AWESOME), and when all was said and done, I had run much faster than I thought I was, and then I got to feel AWESOME.

Anyone reading this--go out and be, feel and experience AWESOMENESS for a few minutes, or more than that. It truly IS AWESOME!

Very Bad Girls

Cindy didn't tell me she was on the cover of Rolling Stone. I SWEAR that's her on the left. Now if only that was me on the right (sigh).

It's a good thing Cindy and I didn't go to college together. We truly would have been VERY BAD GIRLS.

Someday we will make good on one of our fantasies which is to host a talk show simply called, "The Critics." She and I would wear referree shirts and just criticize anything, anyone, anytime.

OK, so that goes against my generally Buddhist-esque ethic, but I'm entitled to a few vices every now and then, right?

Here's a short list of things Cindy and I would rail on:

• Clueless minivan drivers on cell phones
• People with too much hair. And we are not just talking about on the head.
• Women who don't know how to change a flat tire (ooh, I'm so HELPLESS!). Bike or car, take your pick!
• Anyone who is naive enough to think that all of their personal idols are absolutely clean (drug-free), God-fearing individuals
• Passive-aggressiveness
• People who don't drink coffee and act like those who do are on drugs
• People who wince when seeing either Cindy or me wearing a Crackhead shirt
• Anyone who thinks I'm too old to wear a lot of *PINK*
• Overly-PC individuals. Hey, I'm the first to admit I'm a fairly bleeding-heart liberal, but even I have my limits. I'd like to attend a bachelorette party with Chief Illiniwek doing a strip-tease, for example. Or Ricky Martin. Or Daniel Craig. Speaking of which, why aren't there James Bond bike jerseys? I would be all over that!

Today's deviation from the normally tame, triathlon-oriented subject matter is brought to you by a combination of it being spring (FINALLY!), a new bike, and getting back on the training horse!

LGL and I Rode Outside Today!!!!!

I still have the hugest shit-faced grin on my face. I only rode for 1:40 (planned 1:30), but I wanted to ride for 4 hours.

Here's how it went down:

I loaded up one bottle of lemonade flavored Gatorade in a suitable (until I get an "official" Pinarello one) bottle. I chose my outfit: black/white/red Horribly Hilly Hundreds jersey and red tri shorts (sorry, roadies, I have a lot of those and they fit me well), low cut socks, silver Rudy Project sunglasses. I suited up and got ready to go.

Temperature: 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Winds 10-15MPH, gusting to 25. Perfect Tuesday interval weather!

I was a bit anxious what with the new pedals and all, so first I rode down my street to a stop sign just to try out the old brake and unclip on the right side. Seemed fine! Did a U-turn, and while doing it I am already starting to think, "OMG, OMG, OMG!"

The bike weighs NOTHING. It feels like an extension of my body--it flows with me. It's stiff, responsive, and did I say STIFF? The wheel hubs make a really nice sound when coasting.

This is just riding 2 blocks to the first T-intersection. I'm looking at the Ergomo and yes, WE HAVE POWER! WE HAVE LOTS OF POWER! WITHOUT MUCH EFFORT! Now I'm looking forward to some gentle hills, even though I am just warming up.

I got the hang of unclipping really quickly, although I did unclip a bit earlier than I usually would before coming to a full stop. Clipping in--I'm working on that. A few times I got in without looking, but it will take a little getting used to. No worries!

I couldn't help but keep this smile on my face as I'm getting close to my interval loop. I have never ridden a bike like this, and I kept thinking, "Is this REALLY my bike?" And then it was time for some intervals, and I was stinking happy the entire time, and I hit all my wattage targets. I was HAPPY when the wind picked up, and I was HAPPY when a stinky cloud decided to sprinkle on me. It was all good! I almost even took a spin on this side street that is, I kid you not, COBBLED. But I'll save the cobbles for another time.

The bike is a dream, and I can't wait to get her on some REAL hills. Sadly, my Bitch is going to get a bit dusty for a few weeks, but she'll have her opportunity in June and July.

I called my LBS to tell them how happy I am with this, and especially that they recommended this frame to me. It's absolutely PERFECT for me. My only concern is that a stiff crosswind will literally blow me over, the thing is so light! Tough problem to have, I think!

Here are some snippets from my thoughts during my ride today:

• OMG, OMG, OMG, this thing is so light
• This bike is FUCKING AWESOME
• My bike is nicer than YOUR CAR
• I'd rather have this bike than YOUR CAR
• DON'T TRY AND OUTRUN ME YOU WILL LOSE!
• I can't wait to ride in some mountains!
• I need some roadie kits
• I don't care what kind of funky tan I get from wearing gloves.
• I don't know if it's possible to have sex with a bike but I think I just about did!

La Vita e Bella and Weekly Workout Totals 04/09/2007-04/15/2007

I haven't been outside on LGL (abbreviated name for La Gazza Ladra) yet, but I did get to ride her for 4 hours over the weekend. New bike, new trainer, new shoes, new orthotics in the shoes, but as one of my LBSG's noted, "But everything else is the same."

I've been trying for over a year to find a new trainer that works for me. I've had a Blackburn Defender (magnetic) since 2001, and let's just say I put the hurt to that piece of equipment. I can still use it, but it's become noisy, and I wore down the roller. I tried a unit from Performance Bicycle (hated it--gave it to my brother, Tom), and then I got a Cycleops, which I used begrudgingly, but didn't feel was still the right one for me. A couple of weeks ago, I bought and tried the newest Blackburn, the Ultra. Aside from a stupid way of adjusting the overall resistance (you have to take apart the roller mechanism, which trust me, involves a critical spring flying across whatever room you are in, and of course the thing is nearly invisible unless you are on white carpet), I thought it might be OK for me, but after 2 tries, I decided not and returned it.

I was back on the old Blackburn contemplating what to do, when I received an email from Bike Nashbar about a sale on the Tacx Satori. I looked at its specs online, and it seemed like it would work for me, but the nice thing was that I was able to do an online chat with someone at Bike Nashbar and I told him specifically what my parameters are for a trainer. He assured me it would work, but that I could return it if it didn't. I placed the order Wednesday, and I didn't expect to receive it until next week sometime. But it arrived on Friday, and I knew it was supposed to be cool this weekend, so I figured, what the hell, may as well put it together.

So late Friday afternoon, I'm sitting on the stairs with parts all over my foyer floor drinking a beer, trying to interpret the assembly instructions. There weren't that many parts, but of course, the pictures and words seemed a bit incomplete. Once I figured out what they meant by "shove magnetic unit into part K," I was in business. They really meant shove! I thought I was done with the hard stuff, but then I couldn't figure out how the roller was supposed to fit to the rear tire. I'd had enough with the thing Friday night, and decided to sleep on it.

Saturday morning, I look on the Tacx website, and voila, they have ACTUAL INSTRUCTIONS on how you are supposed to adjust various parts to get the roller to the wheel and make the thing go! Yee-haw! I printed the online FAQ and stowed it with the instructions that came with the unit (why they didn't include this last critical bit in the box I will never know).

Next order of business was learning how to and performing the offset crap for the Ergomo. Most power meters have a pre-ride ritual to them whereby you ensure the computer in the meter on the bars is properly communicating with the computer in the bottom bracket (for Ergomo and SRM) or the rear wheel hub (for Power Tap). The SRM process is really simple--while the bike is stationary, you "awaken" the meter and spin the cranks backwards for a few seconds, and then capture the offset reading. Easy-peasy. For the Ergomo, though, you need to spin the cranks FORWARD in the HIGHEST POSSIBLE GEAR, and then watch the meter at the same time, so basically this means the bike needs to be clamped to something (for most normal people) in order to perform the procedure. So guess what? Now I am going to buy a professional bike stand, which will be a good thing to have anyway, since it makes washing the bikes much easier. But I need to be sure that the one I buy can both clamp onto the nice, elongated seat post (gently) of LGL as well as the freaking aero seat tube of the Bitch.

Anyway, I did the Ergomo offset thing with LGL on the new trainer, and finally got a ride going. Woo-hoo! All KINDS of fucking power with this new trainer. I mean the thing is (almost) infinitely adjustable to the point where you can pick a gearing, a cadence, and have at it, meaning there are many combinations you can choose from in order to generate a given wattage. I HEART THE TACX! For those of you who don't ride with power, well, you are missing out on a ton of fun--a good trainer plus a power meter can actually make trainer riding tolerable.

And then there were the new bike shoes. I kept adjusting the straps to get them "just right" on each foot. Since I was a lazy ass and got started late and had to figure out the trainer and then the Ergomo, I cut my ride short to only 1:45 so I could get in a short recovery swim while there was open lap swim between 12:00 and 1:00PM. When I got to the pool deck, 2 of my favorite guys were sharing a lane--Chad and Mike. We had some chuckles, and at one point Mike (oh, the HORROR) grazed my thigh from his lane while doing backstroke! I just laughed about it, because he's an awesome swimmer, and for some reason, I don't mind when GOOD swimmers are touching me! When we both got to the wall, I had a great laugh with Chad and Mike, and I told them that THEY are allowed to touch me whenever they want but nobody else.

After swimming, I inhaled some lunch and then headed out for what I call an "odyssey," i.e., a bunch of errands arranged in such a way that I keep going for several hours. Did you know that Fedex sets their driver routes so they optimize the number of right-hand turns they make, which ends up saving gas? I should have patented my odyssey routing! I do the same thing. As much fun as it can be to be driving around on a sunny day, it is wasteful to "just drive," so I had set a route to get a number of things done.

First stop: Oriental market. Dried shiitake mushrooms (they have nearly a whole aisle of dried fungus), Moon cakes, miscellaneous condiments, and I scored some freshly-made spring rolls and seaweed salad (for snack food). I ate one of the 3 Moon cakes as soon as I got back to my car. The filling was GREEN! I don't know what type of bean paste was used in these, but I guess it was green. Not the greatest Moon cake I've had, but it was good enough.

Next stop: Home Depot for a grounded outlet to replace one that has gone bad in one of my bathrooms. Nice of them to have the old self-checkout so I could do the old in-out quickly.

Next stop: Fabric store, to get 8 pillow forms, zippers for said pillows (to be made for family and friends) and buttons for some things to be made for family and friends. It was my lucky day, as the pillow forms were 40% off! Only thing is being how recently I had worked out and rehydrated, I had to piss like a race horse, the checkout line was too long, and they wouldn't let me use their restroom. I nearly did a "metal shrubbery" pee (ask Cindy about that--she knows I will pee almost anywhere--the metal "shrub" is the car door, opened of course), but in the interest of being in plain sight in a suburban mall parking lot, I went into Toys 'R Us, assuming they would have a public restroom, which they did, and while I was there, I looked around and almost bought another Barbie doll. But I had will power! So I was able to head back to the fabric store and complete my itinerary, since I didn't want to have to come back in a couple of weeks.

Next stop: Grocery store. By the time I got there, lunch was long gone, and I was beginning to feel hypoglycemic. But I made it through, got home, and began eating more or less continuously until sleepy time.

When I woke up today, I wasn't optimistic about an outdoor ride since it was 22! I was OK with it, though, as I would only need to go 2:15 (:15 extra to make up for Saturday), and then run :35 off the bike. I asked my Magic 8-Ball if I would be able to generate my full power today, and it told me "It is decidedly so," and that got me motivated, PLUS my newspaper was delivered by 6:00AM (albeit he dropped it more or less on the street instead of onto my driveway, bastard), so I was all set to have a good ride.

And good ride I had! I just about hit my wattage targets for the first time in many, many weeks. And with this new trainer, I could generate whatever I wanted at whatever cadence I wanted. I tend to like to warmup at 90-100RPM, but then drop to 85-95 for intervals. I could tweak my gearing, tweak the trainer resistance, so I was happy, HAPPY!

The 2:15 passed pretty quickly. I was quite surprised at how un-bored I was. I have been eating Clif Bloks on the trainer rides, and let me tell you how much they SUCK. I mean the taste is good, but I am not that into CHEWING while I am riding. It would be nice if the damn things melted in your mouth, BUT NO! I would never take these on an outdoor ride because they come in a package which you basically rip open and then you can't close it up. 1 package has 6 blocks, and I can only "eat" one at a time, even though you need to eat THREE to get 100 calories, unlike a gel which is down the hatch like an oyster in one big gulp. But hey, they were free, so what the hell, I can eat free shit on the trainer, right?

And now, ladies and gentleman, for some running off a road bike. Last week's episode did not go so well, so I was a bit anxious. I did feel my adductors for about 1/4 mile, but other than that, it was just the usual sick-to-my-stomach-hard-brick feeling. Meaning I had put the power to the pedals! I ran a bit slower than I would have liked (8:50/mile for 4 miles), but with everything I did this week, that was fine. I am sure I will get down to more like 8:30/mile over the next few weeks.

Did I say that I AM FUCKING TRAINING NOW????? Yes, kids, I'm actually training. I made a schedule through Triple T, emailed it to my coach and asked him to bless it. It looks good on paper, anyway. I told him that as long as I had signed up for this shit that I might as well train, and well, 12-13 hours to me just does not qualify as training. So starting last week, I began stepping it up, and I had a GREAT week this past week.

What's awesome about the weekly training totals below is that this is the most average hours of sleep and total stretching time since early January! With the newspaper delivery noise issue fixed, I am not being awakened at 4:00AM, and I guess I had a bit of stress there over the new bike thing and the taxes thing (those are done and I don't owe a ton of money, phew!), and all of that is gone, and I am really prepared to train properly so that I can be competitive at Triple T and then maybe even get psyched for another Ironman? I guess mostly I am just ready to really train now, but I am grateful for this past winter because I learned some new things about myself.

I still love my "other" hobbies, and I laugh whenever someone finds out that I do "other" stuff besides swim, bike, run, lift weights, talk about those things, plan for those things, and associate with people who do those things. I absolutely LOVE sewing, cooking, gardening, listening to music, and I think I may get on playing the piano again.

But don't worry--I still LOVE this triathlon thing (even though a friend, Steve, after looking at LGL's pictures, insinuated that I would be done with triathlon), but especially this riding the bike thing, because it does give me great amounts of personal joy, and I still absolutely love sharing my knowledge and experience with others.

Here ya go. Now THIS is what I call starting to train!


Weekly Totals 04/09/2007-04/15/2007
Swim: 9500 yards (5.39 miles) in 3.43 hours; 22% of weekly workout time; approx. 1202 calories burned
Bike: Approx. 94.8 miles in 5.42 hours; 35% of weekly workout time; approx. 2500 calories burned
Run: Approx. 31.04 miles in 4.78 hours; 31% of weekly workout time; approx. 2168 calories burned
Strength: 1.97 hours; 13% of weekly workout time; approx. 493 calories burned
All Sports: Approx. 131.23 miles in 15.6 hours; approx. 6363 calories burned
Sleep: 8.79 hours avg./night
Stretching: 3.28 hours. Massage: 1.5 hours