10/08/07: 112 Ride? Not Exactly.....

The last thing I wanted to do yesterday morning was to get up and ride 112, after doing my peak 3 hour run on Saturday, although that's what makes triathlon training so much more challenging than marathon training (I mean no offense to marathon runners by that statement, as I've done a couple).

In marathon training you get to recover for a couple of days after a long run; in triathlon, the day after the my longest run of my training, I find myself doing the longest ride of my training, or at least that was the plan. The ride seemed to be doomed from the start.

Want to know if god has a sense of humor? Just tell her your plans.....

:)

I started out with the velobrew b ride for a 55 mile ride, and was going to do another 57 on my own. Not 5 minutes into the ride we had our first flat of the day; unfortunately, that was a bad omen of what was to come. 10 minutes or so later the flat was fixed and we were on our way again.

About an hour later we had our second flat, and this time it was me :(

No big deal....change it and keep going.....and then 10 minutes later another flat....me again....UGHHHHHH....

After the first flat I felt around the tire and didn't see or feel anything, so I replaced the tube and kept going. After the second flat, I looked VERY carefully, and found a TINY piece of glass that had lodged in the tire.....No big deal, except I had only brought one tube with me.

The smart thing to do would have been to borrow a spare tube from someone else in the group. Unfortunately for me that's not what happened. Instead someone suggested patching the tube, which I did....I few minutes later we're rolling again.....and a few minutes after that....Yep, you guessed it...another flat....the patch didn't hold....

So of course this time I borrowed another tube, right? No, that would have made way too much sense...the person who suggested patching it the first time suggested patching the old tube....so I did, and so I flatted again a few minutes later....This time we did finally put in a new tube and the rest of the ride was uneventful, other than the group was LONG GONE...

I'd like to thank Richard for staying with me, giving me his spare tube, and making sure I got back to the start ok.

4...yes 4, F&^$ING flats in one ride.....I managed to go just over 40 miles in 4.25 hours......UUUUGGGGHHHHHH.

Since it was now 12:30 and the ride was pretty much shot for the day, I headed over to the bike shop a couple of miles from my house to get some new tubes, CO2 and to get the speed sensor for my computer fixed, since it was already 12:30 and the day's ride was shot. To make the day complete, so was the sensor on my computer. Although I could have grabbed a new tube and CO2 and kept riding for an hour or two, sometimes it's best to live to fight another day.

Needing to drop my bike off for it's pre-race tune up anyway, I drove down to Ponte Vedra Beach, planning on leaving my bike at Bike Fitters. Just to make the day even more fun, they're no longer open on Sundays.....just one more annoyance for the day and another hour and a half wasted.....not that I was mad at them, since the last time I checked they don't need to check in with me when they change their hours....just one of those things.....

After a 4 hour ride (3 hours of actual riding time), only 42 miles, and a wasted trip to PV Beach, I headed home, Dos Equis in hand to at least try to enjoy the afternoon......

I've already gotten in one century ride, a couple of 90 miles rides (including the 6.25 hour ride in the wind last weekend) and a couple of 80 mile rides, so I'm confident that I'm ok for the race....I have one more long training day left before my taper: a 6 hour brick this coming weekend (5 hour ride, one hour run).

Fortunately the weather was REALLY nice early in the evening, and we were able to take the dogs for a walk to the lake for Kramer to get his swim on and Sophie to...well...watch Kramer get his swim on.....she's a pug, what did you expect?

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure.....