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April 28, 2006
WILDFLOWER WEEK
This was a fairly light training week, as I tried to taper down for my first triathlon on the season on Saturday, and the Wildflower (100 mile) bike ride on Sunday.
I took Monday and Tuesday off from work, to try to get some projects finished up around the house. Monday afternoon found me running a jackhammer, breaking up concrete that was poorly placed by the previous owner of our house. Tuesday, I decided to try to get a bike ride in, around the Table Mountain Loop. This was the only portion of the bike ride that I had not been on, and I really wanted to see just how challenging it would be. I started from my house, went into Durham, then east on Durham Pentz, to Wheelock Road, the up Coal Canyon, then in to Oroville, left on Nelson, then onto Cherokee Road.
This is where the fun begin. About a mile into the Cherokee portion, it started to get a little steeper, by the two mile point it was really steep, and by roughly the three mile point the ride was just killing me. My legs were burning, my heart rate was probably up around 175, and I just could not find a flat spot to recover. I finally got off the bike and walked for a 100 feet or so to give my body a little bit of a rest, and to get my heartrate back under control. It took two more of these “rest breaks� to make it to the top of Table Mountain. Here all along I was under the impression that this would be the “easy� portion of the ride.
I took two bottles with me for the ride, one with accelerade, and one with water. I drained both completely by the time I got to the top of the hill. I thought to myself, well, now what are you going to do??? You’ve got 30 miles to get home, it’s 80 degrees, you are sweating like Ken Lay on the witness stand, and you are out of water??? I then remembered that there was a Mexican food van (AKA Roach Coach) that was parked at the intersection of Durham Pentz and Clark Road when I came through. Unfortunatly, he had already left for the day by the time I got there. So, at that point I had no option but to keep going, and hope that I could make it back to Durham before the cramping set in. Luckily, I made it back without any real issues. This ride ended up being around 55 miles, quite a bit longer than I had anticipated. It also made me realize how much “fun� the last 50 miles on Sunday will be (cause this first 50 pretty well beat me up, and I was tired and sore).
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were rest days to get ready for the weekend. Saturday myself and two friends did the North Forebay Triathlon as a relay. I did the running portion (3 miles), which went first, then Eric did the Kayak leg, the other Dennis did the bike ride. This was a lot of fun, as we really were not trying to win anything - just go out and have a good time. Of course, once I was at the starting line, it was anything but fun and games - I have this awfully competitive streak in me. I was the 12th runner as we rounded the first turn, and I thought that I should be able to pick off a few more as the race went on - but no such luck. I guess I not quite as fast as I thought I was, and I ended up being passed by 8 runners by the end - so we started out the second leg in about 20th position. My time actually was pretty good, my unofficial watch time had me right at 23 minutes, which is just where I thought I would finish. Eric held his place in the pack, and the other Dennis slipped a few postions - but overall we were very happy with our placement amongst the finishers. The results were not up yet, but we know we beat our time from last year, and the way I see it, anytime you can be another year older, yet faster, that is a great thing.
We played tennis later that afternoon, and I hurt my damned ankle again - this the day before a 100 mile bike ride. That should make for an interesting ride.....
Posted by Dennis at April 28, 2006 07:06 PM