Tri Dreaming

Have I mentioned before how much I love the sun? My whole mood gets better with good weather... we actually had 3 beautiful days in a row of sun, 70s and NO WIND! It was truly amazing! Even more ideal, one of those days fell on Saturday for the Trek 100 ride benefiting the MACC fund (Madison Against Childhood Cancer). My boss sponsered me since he was going to be out of town so that was awesome... I rode my first century!! Long story short, it went pretty well... the first 65 miles I felt awesome - the best I have all season so that was great. I finally felt like I could ride again. Then, when I was starting to get tired, I saw a group of 8 infront of me and knew that I either had to go for it and try to catch them to sit in back for a while and meet some people, or ease off to save the legs. Naturally, I decided to go for it and pushed even harder to catch the group. I think I chased them hard for the next 7 or 8 miles, always coming so close to the tail end before coming to a stop sign or having a car cut me off. They were always just out of reach. Pretty much that was the beginning of the end. I completely wore myself out chasing them, never caught them and by then was pretty much starving and had to stop at a rest stop for food. I managed to keep most of my stops very short (just to fill up bottles) and tried to skip at least every other one. After the 65 miles, and wearing myself out, I hit the bad roads and hilly area which pretty much finished off my legs. I had been keeping a pace I was extremely happy with and had managed to pull my average up to 19.2 but then watched it decrease gradually as I tried to keep up my pace. I ended with a average of 18 which was still good, but a little frustrating. The good news: I finished my first century, while riding pretty much the entire way by myself (not drafting) which I was proud of. I had some serious pain in my shoulders and lower back, but otherwise felt good. Even when I couldn't hold the faster pace, my legs still felt reasonably strong and solid. I was happy.

Met up with Mark afterwards and we ran a slow, easy 2 miles just so I could see what I was in for. I didn't feel great, but it wasn't horrible. By that point it was pretty hot out and I was extremely dehydrated so all in all, that too went pretty well. Nice relaxing night followed in preparation of another early morning.

Sunday there was a sprint tri in Lake Mills that we a lot of people we knew were participating in. For the season it is pretty much the first event and this year held a participating number of 712. A huge triathlon for a small town. It looked fun though and I felt the itch come back...

Aero bars made it onto the bianchi yesterday and Mark gave me a little instructional ride on how to use them without dying... greatly appreciated. Today the wind is back, but there were 4 of us that went out and I tried them out. I LOVE AEROBARS!! I was moving with hardly any effort - into the wind!! It was amazing! Super comfortable too so that was cool.

Supposed to get hot and humid with thunderstorms for the next few days so I'll work on the swim :) Huge hilly ride up for this weekend. Luckily I only signed up for the short course of 100k. It's supposed to be 87 degrees out. Yuck. Following weekend is the High CLiff half ironman. I am more than nervous for that event, but hoping for the best.

Need to head home now. Have been typing for much too long now. Hope everyone had a great weekend and training went well. :)