I really wanted to do a bike ride out to Grand Haven this afternoon.  The weather forecast had temperatures in the 50’s, wind out of the east, and only a 10% chance of rain (10% my ass – more on that later though).  Thankfully, I was able to do the ride, but not without a few obstacles. 

I headed out at 2:00.  The skies were slightly overcast, but precipitation free.  I was cruising along when I got stopped by a train on Wealthy street.  There is NEVER a train at this time – or at least there has never been a train at this time the other dozen times I have done this route.  I got there just as the train was starting through the intersection and it was a long train.  I sat for more than 5 minutes waiting for it pass. 

When the end was in sight, I put my helmet back on, clipped in and was ready to go when the gates went up.  I took off over the tracks only to have my water bottle fly out of the cage.  This has NEVER happened to me before.  Seeing a pattern yet?  So, there goes my water bottle skidding across the pavement.  I pull off into the first driveway and look back to find that I have managed to stop traffic once again.  Two cars (one in each direction), stopped for me so that I could retrieve the water bottle before it was flattened.  Whoever you two mystery people are, “Thank you very much!”  I am sure they were just as annoyed by the train and with traffic already backed up, they probably didn’t want to stop and hold up traffic any longer.  Question.  Do water bottle cages stretch out over time?  Once I got my water bottle back in, it seemed like they were looser than normal, but I may have just been paranoid at that point.

So, after the delay of the train and water bottle debacle, I was back on my way.  Or so I thought.  I proceeded to get stuck behind a pickup truck towing a car.  It was going so slow that I couldn’t get into a decent pace, but just fast enough that it probably would have been unsafe to try and pass it.  Finally, after a mile or so, I finally had open road.

I let loose on the O’Brien street hills, flying up the inclines with the energy I saved behind the slow moving traffic.  I thought I was in the clear.  Not so, I guess.

When I got to Wilson (the county border), I felt a couple rain drops.  I guess 10% was turning into 100%.  I figured that if I could make it to 40th avenue (another 5 miles) before the rain got any worse, I would be in the clear because after that it is all pretty much flat.  However, after only a mile, the rain started to pick up.  At that point, I felt my phone buzzing in back pocket. Crap.  I pulled off the road and checked it.  Work emergency.  Lovely.  Thankfully, I was able to get a hold of a co-worker who was able to advert the crisis for me.  By the time I had work all straightened out, the rain was picking up.  At this point, I was so pissed at my bad luck that I was determined to finish the ride.  No turning back now.

I got back on the road and started flying.  I threw my bike in the big gear and started mashing away.  After a couple miles, I looked down and realized that I had averaged 23-24 mph over 3 miles.  Yikes!  I realized that I had to pull back a bit not only so I didn’t burn out, but also because by that point it was pouring and the road was getting slick.  The next few miles were in the 19-20 mph range which was probably a bit safer for the conditions. 

While it was pouring, I looked down and noticed that my tights were foaming.  Interesting.  Backing up a bit.  This morning, I hand washed my tights and threw them in the dryer in preparation for the ride.  Apparently, I didn’t rinse them enough and now I was foaming.  Thankfully, it wasn’t too bad and with enough rain, they seemed to fully rinse out.

At last, nearly 20 miles into my ride, the rain started to let up and my luck started to improve.  I made it the rest of the way without incident – other than getting filthy dirty.  Green Lightening and I were completely covered from head to toe, front wheel, to back.  I gave up on drinking from my water bottle.  For some reason, this didn’t look very appetizing:

By the time I made it to Grand Haven, I was soaking wet and filthy.  When all was said and done, I had a pretty good ride.  My time spent riding was 1:44:35 although it was more like 2 hours including the time I had to stop for the 36.27 miles.  I averaged 20.8 mph over the ride, but had the wind at my back nearly the entire time which obviously helps a bit.

Jennie shot a couple pictures of me to capture the dirt. 

I should have grabbed a a picture of my backside too.  I had a skunk from seat to neck – it was impressive.  When I got home, I threw all my clothes in a bucket of soapy water.  However, I will be shocked if my bike jersey is ever white again.  If it does whiten up, I could do a commercial for our laundry detergent.  After showering, I had to hose off Green Lightening – again.  It seems like I am washing it after almost every ride these days.

Oh well, I survived and in the end had a good ride and experience I won’t forget.  All part of the training I guess!

In case you lost track, here is a summary of the events from the first half of my bike ride.

Today wasn’t a particularly bad day by any means.  But, for some reason, I was feeling very pet-peevey on my run today.  Maybe it was just because I was busy at work and had a lot of pent up stress.  So, I thought I would share some of my pet peeves of the day.

#1 Dogs Walking Their Owners

I am a dog person.  I have nothing against dogs.  I like dogs.  But it bugs the hell out of me when someone is out letting their dog walk them. The dog is walking wherever they want and the owner has no control over them.  I’m more afraid of the leash than the dog.  All it takes is the owner not paying attention and the dog to switch sides of the sidewalk and you have yourself a readymade trip hazard.  Today, my favorite was a woman standing in the middle of the sidewalk while her two English bulldogs were each standing on opposite sides of the sidewalk inspecting the bushes.  The only way around her (without trudging through the mud) was to jump in the street.  Ugh.

#2 Large Groups of Teenage Girls

Ever notice the smell when running past a group of teenage girls?  It is worse than walking past The Body Shop.  I think I would rather run behind a car puffing out exhaust fumes.  Yuck!

#3 Unnecessary Bike Paths

The lake that I run around (Reeds Lake) is in the process of adding a bike path around a portion of it.  To do this, they are tearing out a couple hundred trees and relocating wetlands.  It is totally unnecessary.  The entire road around the lake is a 25 mph residential road with wide shoulders on both sides of the road.  Not only that, but it is very lightly traveled.  On my run today, I only saw 5 cars during the 5+ miles I was on Reeds Lake Blvd.  During the portion of the run that was alongside where the bike path is going, I didn’t see a single car.  Another problem with the bike path is that they don’t plow the path in the winter.  So, as soon as we get snow again, everyone ends up walking on the shoulder any ways.

Ok, I am done ranting now.  I will get off my soapbox.

On a positive note, I set a new best time for my 8 mile course.  1:00:36 for 8.04 miles.  I am getting closer and closer to getting under the 1 hour mark.  My fastest previous time for the course was 1:00:50 back in November.  So, despite my pet peeves, I had a pretty good run.

I just want to say how happy I am that the weather has warmed up enough to bike outside.  I do not miss the trainer at all.  So far, I have done 3 outside rides and loved each one of them.  And to make things even better, the 10-day forecast has temperatures in the 40’s with Monday topping out at 50.  I see lots of biking in the near future!

Old Man Winter, I would formally like to give you a swift kick in the ass and a hearty “Goodbye”.

Today was my last really long run until the Martian Marathon!!! YAY!!!! I did 21 today.  Over the next few weeks, I only have to do long runs of 12, 14, 10, and 12.  I am so happy that the 20 milers are over and done with.  When I started this morning, my legs were sluggish.  I just kept telling them to hold on for one last long run and then I would give them a break.  Thankfully, they held out and I finished in 3:00:28.

I changed things up a bit for my run today and did one big loop rather than lots of smaller loops.  I generally do smaller loops without going too far from home.  It gets boring seeing the same things over and over again, so I decided to do a route I have never done.  It ended up being a great run.  Nearly half of it was on a paved trail or on country roads with little to no traffic.  Very peaceful.  I ran for as long as I could without looking at my watch because I didn’t want to know how far I had gone.  I had a general idea of my distance though because the main roads are all a mile apart and I could count them off in my head as I passed them (44th street, 52nd street, 60th, street… 84th street).

I didn’t look at my watch until well after the turn around point.  I was running low on Gatorade so I stopped at the grocery store to fill up at the drinking fountain using a single serving Gatorade powder package. As I left the store, I broke down and looked at my watch.  17 miles.  YAY!!!! I thought I was only going to be at 15 or so.  17 was a blessing.  I picked up the pace a bit for the next mile.  And then I hit a hill which kicked me in the face a bit and slowed me right back down.

As I hit the driveway, my watched beeped over for 21 miles.  I was very happy to be done.  The run turned out to be hillier than I expected, but I felt strong throughout.

After the run, I took a snow bath and downed a box of Mac and Cheese to refuel before starting my work day at noon.  I made sure to get up and walk around the house every half hour or so to make sure my legs didn’t tighten up too much.

After dinner, I headed up to the pool for open swim.  I figured that the swim would be good recovery for my legs as long as I didn’t push it too hard.  When I got to the pool, it was a ghost town.  I thought that I had the time wrong or something.  Turns out, I was the only person who showed up.  I had the pool to myself for almost a half hour before two other guys showed up.

For my workout, I did:

1 x 500
1 x 400 Pull
1 x 300
1 x 200 Pull
2 x 100 Kick w/ fins
1 x 200
1 x 300 Pull
1 x 400
(1 x 500 Pull Skipped)
2500 yards total

I really wanted to do the last 500 yards to get to a full 3000 yards, but my calves were starting to cramp up and I didn’t want to push it.  It was a very casual swim and I didn’t even time myself.  I just wanted to get the distance in and stay comfortable, so no sense cramping up.

Not sure what the rest of the weekend will bring, but I’m hoping to get in at least one outdoor bike ride if the weather cooperates and another run.

Now, it is time to relax and enjoy a beer (or two).

March 1st.  The start of a new month.  The weather is warming up and we spring forward an hour in just a few weeks, which means that Spring should be right around the corner.  The 5 day forecast here actually looks fairly pleasant with temperatures in the upper 30’s and low 40’s.  Fingers crossed that this weather keeps up for the long term.

Time to look back before we can look forward though.

Last Week

I have thoroughly enjoyed this past week.  It was a light week and I got to rest my legs a bit.  I spent some extra time on the bike and doing core workouts.  I did my first “21” workout yesterday.  I found this work on Steve In a Speedo’s blog and it starts with 20 pushups and 1 crunch, followed by 19 pushups and 2 crunches, etc until you hit 1 pushup and 20 crunches.  In the end, it is 210 pushups and 210 crunches.  I took it nice and easy my first time through because I wasn’t sure if I would make it through.  Nevertheless, my arms were a bit rubbery today during my swim.  Next time, I will try and speed it up by taking shorter breaks between sets.

Last Month

Overall, I had a good month numbers wise despite it being a short month.  At the end of January, my goal was to spend more time biking this month and I met that goal.  Last month, I did 7 rides for 8 hours, 20 minutes.  This month, I knocked out 10 rides for 13 hours 23 minutes.  Not only that, but I was able to do my first outdoor ride to Grand Haven.  My running and swimming were a bit off from last month, but that is mainly because of two scheduled light weeks.  I also did about 10 strength workouts throughout the month.  I say “about 10” because I still haven’t found a great way of keeping track of these workouts – Sporttracks just isn’t doing it for me.

As for this month, more of the same.  I have one more long run this week – 22-23 miles.  After that, the taper begins for my marathon.  I took the final step yesterday and actually registered for the race.  Yeah, I know, I like to procrastinate.  I had until the 9th before the price went up so I figured I would wait until the bitter end to make sure my training was going as planned.

One last note.  I emailed the Honolulu Marathon race director to find out when the 2010 date was going to be (the website still has 2009 info).  December 12th is the date.  It looks like we have some planning to do now! YAY!