Back on the Bike - Outside

Saturday morning's long run with Team in Training was supposed to be 16 miles for my Nike training. I started off with the Nike group, ran with them for a while, turned around and ran to the start for the fall team, ran 5 miles with them and then ran backwards on the route for the Nike team - just like I did last week. Somewhere along the 5 mile route with the fall team, my garmin stopped working. It was at 4.17 when I started and at 7.17 when I finished. I'm positive the route was 5 miles because it's a well known and marked route, so that meant the garmin was 2 miles short of where it should be. So according to my garmin, I would have been done at around 14 on the garmin when I got my mileage in. Well, when all was said and done, I was almost at 16. So I probably ended up doing almost 18. And that's ok with me. I've got to start my taper earlier than the rest of the bunch due to my half ironman October 7th.

Then on Sunday I decided I needed to get the bike back outside if at all possible. Believe it or not, we're in another period of off and on rain, but I managed to get it done. As soon as we got home from church Sunday, I traded dress clothes for bike shorts and a jersey and hit the road. I wasn't sure how far I was wanting to go Sunday, but just took it easy and ended up doing 20 miles before heading back to the house. My husband had a fantasy football draft to go to, so that left me and the kids at home. The kids both had friends over and were occupying themselves, so I headed to my retreat - my craft room - and worked on scrapbooks for about 5 hours! It was a great way to relax after the bike ride.

Everyone had the day off Monday for Labor Day. We slept in until about 8:00 (which is late for us) and had breakfast. The skies looked very overcast and like rain was coming. What to do? I really wanted to get in a long bike ride today since I had the whole day. It brought back memories of July 4th all over again. But I decided to give it a go. If I got rained on, well, I'd just get wet. So I took off about 9:30. Since it was overcast, it wasn't so hot. I felt good after going around the neighborhood route I bike on and decided to risk it. I wanted to ride out to the toll road access roads so I could ride without stop signs and stop lights. But to do this, I'd have to go through town. And the part of town I had to go through consists of two lane roads with no shoulders. I'd done it once before with someone else. And this time, I did it by myself. I made it to the toll road, hit the access roads and just rode. It felt good. It was only about 85 degrees and every now and then a great breeze would hit. It felt so good that I ended up going 40 miles. I still need to get in a couple more long rides of at least 50-60 miles, but I felt better getting that ride in.

Today, however, I started getting a little nervous. The half ironman is only a little over a month away on October 7th. I frequent http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/ a lot and today someone who road the bike route of the half ironman this weekend posted their mile by mile review of the course. According to him there are a few tricky corners (meaning sharp and possibly at the end of a steep downhill and leading directly to a steep uphill) and there are three big hills. From reading other posts, I know that the guy who posted the review is a pretty good cyclist. For him to say they are big hills means they are really big to me. And I've seen the profile of the course, so I'm pretty sure the hills are going to be tough. And two of them come late in the course; one of them at the very end. My game plan is to try to find someone to ride the course with me in a couple of weeks. If I can't do that, then I'll at least drive the course in the car. I need to know what to expect.

Tonight was yoga night and I definitely needed it. After a 3 day weekend, it's never any fun to go back to work. Plus, we've been getting adjusted to middle school life and that's been a little stressful. I'm good now. The stress is gone. At least until tomorrow!

I just checked one of the blogs I frequent (www.notquitewhatihadplanned.blogspot.com). Kristie's daughter is a cancer survivor. I followed their original caringbridge site and then continued to follow her at her blog. She posted this link on her site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGS4yE5v9rM . Check it out. Childhood cancer is a horrible thing. It needs more funding. I recognize some of those kids in the video from following their journey through their web sites. Please do what you can to help.