Sunday, June 22, 2008

My ART guy turned triathlete, altimeters and posion ivy, and swimming olympic trials

So, its been three weekends since I've been home for a hard weekend of training. My local ART provider, Brian, was an alternate for the Atlanta olympics in track & field (throwing evernts). This year he bought a bike, and has transformed himself into a trim, fit triathlete. Just completed his first tri, and I rode with him for the first time Saturday morning. I had a 3.5 hr ride on schedule with a good chunk of zone 3 riding, 3x10mins of zone 5, and then just saddle time. He was riding 2 hours, and he put the hurts to me the whole ride! Now I'm encouraging him to get out and try some of the local big guy rides, because he loves riding and needs more of a challenge than I can give him. He says he's just a novice, but I tell him he may be a novice bike rider, but he's no novice athlete! He knows how to work hard!

In the afternoon I actually put a computer onto my bike. I haven't ridden with one in years. This one has an alitmeter, I thought it would be fun to track climbing, in prep for a potential attempt at Silverman in November (9000ft of climbing in 112 miles!). Then I cleared weeds, and got into poison ivy, and now have the itchies on my arms and legs. Why I never learn to wear long sleeves and pants when I do this is beyond me!

Then Sunday morning rolls around, with a shorter 2.5 hr ride, with a little less hard riding than yesterday, but still some upper zone riding. I decide to pick a hilly route, and the first hill I was wondering if that was such a good idea - my legs were hurting from yesterday. I suffered up the hills, managed about 2000 ft of climbing in 2:15 (I bagged the last 15 minutes), and even skipped the transition run! I'm such a wussy girl. Now I'm drinking a milkshake from Sonic - they have the best drinks ever! Especially their fruit slushes - but today was a good day for ice cream since I hadn't had any this week.

I'm anxiously awaiting the US Olympic swimming trails which start 6/29. I'm a hopeless swim fanatic. Should be very exciting to watch Michael Pehlps, Ryan Lochte, Dara Torres (my idol - she is my age!) Natalie Coughlin (just broke the AMerican record in the 200im in only her second time swimming the even in 5 years!), Katie Hoff, and all the others. Then the Tour de France is up in July, then the Olympics. It wil be a good summer for following my favorite athletes!

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