Friday Tri

I guess it had to happen one day. Apparently, today was my day.

I’ve been out with the gang a bit more than usually lately. I love hanging with them, but one of two things always happens. Either: 1. I train in my proper zones and I hold them back, or 2. I keep up to them, which puts me in zone 7 and then the coach yells at me.
Anyway – I’ve noticed how many flat tires folks get. We had a big talk about that in Lake Placid a few weeks back when Bern got 3 flats and Willem blew both of his tires out at once.(She was cute, but you really have to keep your eyes on the road there buddy!). I kept my mouth shut. Id’ never had a flat and I figured the moment I’d say it out loud, I’d jinx myself.

I took my bike into the shop two weeks ago and got 2 new tires and tubes, new chain and rear chain rings. All set for Ironman, with a month to work with them and make sure they were good.

I met Willem at the Lake at 6:00 again this morning. I got there about 10 minutes earlier so that I could get warmed up a bit. Willem is the fastest swimmer I know. I thought I’d give trying to stay close to him a shot. (What was I thinking?) There was an exercise in futility. It’s absolutely amazing to watch who quickly, quietly and apparently effortlessly he just slipped on ahead of me. I often race with whoever is around me in the water. Often it takes 20 – 30 strokes or more for one or the other to pull away. I think it was about 6 strokes and he was gone! Amazing.

We had a great swim none the less. The water was warm with not a ripple on the surface except for us. Down to the far end of the lake. Stop for a minute or two and then back again. It’s a little over 1k each way. I didn’t race back but kept a steady stroke. It took me 21.5 minutes to hit shore. We walked back to the cars and I took off home to start my 2 hour bike ride.

I thought I’d go around Muscleman Lake and turn north on 48 to Vivian Road and come home again. I figure that’s about a 2 hour ride. I got to Woodbine on Vandorf Sideroad and decided to stop for a moment to change the views on my GPS to something else that I wanted to see. I pulled over near some landscaping stones just past Woodbine and “BANG”. I’d run over a piece of steel strapping and it had sliced through my new tire and tube. I don’t think they had 200k on them yet.

And so it was over. My ‘never get a flat’ luck had run its course. Oh well, it had to happen sometime. Better on a training ride by myself that with the gang, or during a race. I had tools , tubes and air cylinders with me. I changed the tube, put the tire back on, blew air into the tube and . . . . . the slice in the tire was too long. The tube blew right away. I was about 10k from home and had made a conscious decision on my way out not to carry my cell phone with me. I thought it would get all sweaty and I might wreck it. Bad decision. I stated to walk home pushing my bike, but within 5 minutes, Bill from Timberlane drove past, waved, turned around and came back and gave me a ride home. I’d run out of ‘no flat tire’ luck, but generally, my luck was still pretty good. It would have taken me forever to walk home, and I probably would have broken those bike shoes too!.

I put back on one of my old tires and headed out again. Around Muscleman Lake again, back along Aurora Road and home. Total riding time for both rides was just over 2 hours!

I changed shoes quickly had did my old standby 5k run from the house out to Bathurst and home again along Kennedy. I felt like I was running slowly, but I finished in 28 minutes. My 3.5 hour workout was over, in almost 5 hours!

I’m heading up to Peterborough tomorrow to ride the new half Ironman bike course a couple of times. I’d like to get that 180k done in less that 7.5 hours tomorrow, and then enjoy Sunday off again!