Thursday triathlon

Happy May Day! The weather may (ha ha ha, no pun intended :) have finally turned the corner, as today was a sunny, warm day. And this weekend, being Bloomsday, temps are supposed to approach 70. Whoa!!!

Today's workouts started out with a swim at lunch. After doing 10 x 50s for a warmup, I believe that a pool-gnome secretly began moving the wall in my lane back toward the parking lot, because my 10 x 150s took forever! Sometimes 200s seem to zoom by as if they were 25s, and sometimes 50s feel like 500s. Today's swim was definitely in the latter category. But, I'm glad I toughed it out mentally and got my 2000m in. Maybe it was because I was so looking forward to my evening workouts.....

....which began with a fun group meeting up at Thompson's house. Jessi and I had coordinated ahead of time to do a brick/transition practice, so I was excited to see just how much about T2 I had forgotten since last year :) Turns out, it was ALOT. I was also excited that Andy decided to join the group and do her last 5m run before Bloomsday while we were out on the bikes. She didn't know this before she committed, but every direction from Thompson's house includes a hill, so I was proud of her for tackling those hills and toughing out her 5 miles. My other 2 pieces of excitement were a) the arrival of my speedy new aero helmet, and b) the reuniting of Team A+ and the long-awaited A+ photo shoot.

After getting changed and ready to go, our cycling group hit the road for an hour ride. As we turned the first corner, I found myself second wheel, which could only mean one thing: I was stuck and bascially forced into keeping up with Roger. Yikes. Of course I suppose I could have always pulled out of line and hung back, but, come on, really, would I ever let myself do that? :) So it was Roger, me, Jessi, Steve and Eric and we quickly approached warp speed as we tore across Hwy 2 and out toward the Peone loop. By the time I dared take my eyes off Roger's wheel, it was just us two and Jessi, who almost got taken out by a wonderful Spokane driver. The hammer never came up, and before I knew what hit me, we were heading back and I had somehow survived. I even somehow ended up in front as we went past Mead HS on our way in, and I'm sure that Roger and Jessi appreciated the easy pace I was doing :) As I was gasping for breath and screaming down the hill toward the house, it was time to start thinking about T2, so I got out of my shoes ok and hit my "transition area" (aka, a towel, running shoes and visor in the garage). Of course Jessi smoked me in transition, and she absolutely tore out onto the "run course" so I just had to chase her down. :) Super, lets just get anaerobic right out of the gate and get it over with. I finally caught her and we proceeded to scream down the hill towards St Georges, convinced that my legs would fall off at any moment. Fortunately for me, the road finally pitched up and I was able to test out my uphill running legs. Amazingly, they were there, and I actually felt better going up the hills than down. But in reality, that happens alot. I even think that "Tim" is Latin for "can go uphill great, can't go downhill for crap". Anyway, after a leg- and lung-searing mile or so, I turned around and headed back. I tried to keep the pace high, and it was a struggle, but fortunately it wasn't too far back to the house. The overall damage for the brick was as follows:

Bike: 20.6m in 57:15, 21.6mph average (!)

T2: painfully slow

Run: 2.35m in 15:53, 6:45 pace

Here's Jessi before the brick. This smile means "I'm going to beat Tim like a drum and the poor sucker has no idea....he he he he"

After I retreived my legs and lungs from the side of the road, we all hung around for an awesome meal and then the real fun began. I will direct you to the blogs of my A+ teammates for their perspective, but here's my take: thank goodness I got to be the '+' and just got to lay on the floor with my arms out. In reality, it was alot like many of my post-workout sessions: lay on the floor for awhile and try to recover.

The main difference was that we were laughing our butts off while everyone else was standing around either a) taking thousands of pictures or b) wondering why they chose to hang out with such crazy people. In the end (yes, pun intended, A+) we did get a good shot. I'm happy we finally got our symbol on film, though I must admit that the process wore me out. Again, good thing all I had to do was lay on the floor!! :)

It was a wonderful evening of workouts, friends, laughing and food. Definitely the kind of night that makes me glad to be a triathlete.