Didn't blog yesterday...not much to report on the end-of-week except the regular good swim team workout, a decent weights session, and PT with Wolf and his sweet golden retriever (note to self: always schedule PT on Mon/Wed/Fri because the dog works on those days). My hip was less sore this week after my 7 miler than last week and we've determined that I'm officially getting better. My next appt. with Wolf won't be for 2 weeks since things are going pretty well. Ended yesterday by convincing Stacey to meet me at Atlas for Happy Hour which was great...came home, crashed early, and slept about 9 hours.
Today was a bike day and I was enthusiastic about the forecasted sunshine and had aspirations for 60ish miles...both the sun and my mileage didn't quite hit the mark, but they were close. I had hoped the pavement would be be dry by the time I started riding, but it was still wet and cloudy at 8:30 when I headed out...oh, well, just means I have to clean my bike. I headed out the long side of Mercer Island (my bike seems to have this on auto-pilot now) and then east past Loehmann's Plaza, over Newport Way, toward Lake Sammamish. At about mile 24, I was crossing over I-90 and on a concentrated mission to get to the Lake Samm State Park bathrooms, and dropped my chain...no big deal, stopped on the gritty shoulder and threw it back on. However, as I was starting back onto the road, I didn't notice the big pile of glass until I was right in the middle of it. When I didn't hear anything immediately, I thought maybe I'd dodged the bullet. In about a half mile, though, I was rapidly going through the stages of grief (being an expert of late, I recognized this process quickly).
Tire: thumpthumpthump
Me (Denial phase): I can't have a flat, it's been at least a half mile since that glass....
Tire: thumpthumpthump
Me (Anger phase): DAMMIT, I have to pee, I should have looked where I was riding, and haven't I banked karma lately to cover this???? And it has to be the back tire, too, crap.
Tire: thumpthumpthump
Me (bargaining phase): Can't I just make it one more mile to the park and the bathroom and make ONE stop....please?
Tire: thumpthumpthump, not unless you want to wreck the rim you're already riding on.
Me (acceptance): Ok, Ok, it's not the end of the world, I'll fix it now.
I skipped the sadness phase...enough of that lately and I over-dramatized the flat already :) And, of course, it could have been worse. I was right by a condo complex with a nice safe parking lot and a dumpster for the dead C02 cartridge and tube. I fixed it and found a piece of glass that was lodged so far through the tire I had to pull it out the inside-side of the tire...it left a cut, so I booted the tire with a dollar bill (I am not too proud to buy karma at this point and really really didn't want another flat today).
I went on down to the park (thank god, the bathrooms are open in the winter, see, my $1 karma paid off immediately!)...mixed the 2nd bottle of Perpetuem, ate a banana, and headed home the same way, over Mercer Island the long way...I'd thought about trying to do more miles, but the flat and my tired legs decided against that one, and it still felt like a LOONNNGGG ride. I'd had 2 bottles of perpetuem, a banana, and 2/3 bottle of Nuun, but I was really hungry, too.
Of course, when I got home there was an email from my coach saying, "Weather doesn't look as good as we thought, save your long bike ride for Monday when it will be 60 and sunny..." Guess I saw that note about 4 hours too late. But I'll ride again on Monday and might try for another long one. Now I get to recover, clean up the dirty bike, and replace the tires with last summer's "race" tires.
Long ride:
54 miles
3:42:49
Avg pace: 14.4
Avg HR = ?? (GPS said avg HR was 107, but it was screwy today, no way that's right)
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