The Brain is Ready for the Ride

My brain is ready to get back on the bandwagon!  It is funny, I used to feel that if I wasn’t continually training for something I was sure I would fall back into my couch potato ways.  These past few weeks I had no worry that would happen, I just knew I needed a couple of weeks to take things easy.  I would know when I was ready to get back at it.  So far this week I have gotten in some great workouts!  On Tuesday morning I was at the pool and I knocked out 2000m.  I felt fluid and efficient in the water.  My new pink amphibian camo print bathing suit might have had something to do with it.  Or maybe not.  Regardless, it felt good being in the water.

In the evening I went out to Cochrane to ride with my team…for the first time in over a month!  I was a bit late getting there so almost everyone had taken off.  I rode with my teammate Paddy and we just took it easy and chatted the entire way out.  Riding at this time of year is fantastic since it is so social and we just ride with no workouts to think about.  Sadly the shorter evenings are very apparent so despite what happens with the weather our weeknight ride opportunities are quickly dwindling.  Sigh…  I refuse to think about the trainer yet!

Today I got out there for some speed work over lunch.  I had a 50 minute workout on tap with 10 x 1:00 hard/1:00 easy in the middle.  I had a meeting that ran from 9:30 until almost 11:00 so I really didn’t have a great snack.  The hard parts went okay but I really needed to take it easy on the easy parts.  In theory I wasn’t supposed to walk…but I just wasn’t able to stick to that plan.  After the speed work I was ZONKED with a capital Z.  I’m either going to have to make a concerted effort to knock the workout out earlier in the day if I know it is going to be warm, or I really need to make sure I have a good snack to fuel me as I felt like I was playing catch up on nutrition after that run.

And in other news I’ve committed to a few races.  Two are local 10Ks here in October – one for Thanksgiving on the 11th and the other one is the Halloween Howl on the 24th.  Should be fun!  Plus registration opened up for the Great White North half Iron distance triathlon on July 4th.  This was my first half Iron this year and I loved the race.  It works well timing wise as a “see where things are at” before Ironman, plus the majority of my team is racing so it is sure to be a fun event.

Another early swim is on tap for tomorrow, so time for bed!  Hope everyone is having a great week so far!!

Front Brakes Are Good

Normally I swim on Thursday mornings with my group at the Y, but I also had a 45 min bike on the schedule too. With this week being the Commuter Challenge I really wanted to ride my bike to work today. I figured I’d ride and then swim on my own later. I was way overdressed for my ride, but it was feeling great to be outside. At one point during the ride I heard a little metallic ping of something hitting my bike frame and bouncing off. Wasn’t sure what it was, and it barely registered. When I got to work I noticed that my front brakes did not look right. It turns out that what I heard was the back nut coming off of my front brake calliper and winging off my bike:

Luckily there is a bike shop a few blocks away from work, so I dropped it off as soon as they were open at 10 am. I got a little worried when at 3:30 I hadn’t heard back from them. Apparently they hadn’t located a replacement yet… So much for my good intentions for the Commuter Challenge! Debbie gave me a ride home, and then later in the evening…phew! A replacement part was found. Thank goodness. Now I just have to hope that it doesn’t snow on Saturday because I’m hoping for a long bike ride!

Yesterday was a sad, sad day… My beloved sushi suit bit the dust as the rear end of the suit was all of a sudden…somewhat see-through! I had a thought this morning that I still have swim suits from years ago that I could probably still wear, yet most of my competition suits seem to conk out at 6 months. (Okay, I could wear these old suits, but it doesn't mean that I would.) I mentioned this to Debbie…and that I had some of these swimsuits from circa 8th grade or so… I don’t actually use them anymore, I just have them in a drawer somewhere. Debbie really thought I should throw them out:

So here we go Debbie, my suits are now in the discard pile in my spare bedroom! Dontcha just love that neon suit? And I would not recommend getting the white and black suit with the bubbles wet at all. White is not an opaque kind of colour for swimsuits...