triathlon is throwing up on my life

And I love it.


I'm in the middle of a few mellow weeks of training before it gets hot and heavy on the downhill ride to CdA.  Every day last week, I had only one workout to do and most of them were under an hour.  And it was enough.  Not tapering into the half marathon had me running very close to an empty tank post-race, and I soaked up the easy light days.  This weekend things started to go back to normal.  On Friday, I finally got my bike back, with the old crank on it.  I did my 765th quick fit of the season and things seemed good to go. I actually went back and looked at the pictures of all the fits I've had, and to me - someone who loves bicycles but does not know a whole lot about them - they look identical. 


Initial fit:

Fit after crankset replacement:

Fit after crankset un-replacement:

Bike nerds, what do you think?  Other than I should maybe own a second pair of tri shorts.  And I got kinda fat in January.


Saturday morning I managed an hour run with some slightly-faster-than-extremely-slow miles in it, with nary a calf complaint before, during, or after.  I've got some lingering tightness today, but I think for the most part, I'm about ready to close the chapter called, "I Tore My Calf, Yes That Was Stupid."  I jumped straight into the pool for a fantastically hard main set, which included tying the fastest 100 I had swam (swum?) to date.  On Sunday I managed to convince three separate people to come ride with me on a route that I vaguely recalled being pretty flat.

Not terribly hilly, but certainly not flat.  Having my crankset swapped out means that yet again I have to relearn where all my gears are, and I miss the little climbing ones I lost.  However, my extremely cranky adductor behaved very well for 3+ hours of riding and I spent almost the entire ride comfortably in aero, which is a fair trade.  I'm still trying to figure out what a good compromise is for gearing on this bike for CdA - I'm back to 53/39 on the front (compact was 50/34) and 11/25 on the back (swapped down from 11/23).  I'm thinking that going to 11/28 on the back might make up some of the gears that I lost from the compact.  But I'm not going to do anything for a few rides to let my body readjust to the changes (and to let the bike shop guys have a few days off).  

We've also reached the eight weeks of the year where I wish I had taken the time to spend two years getting allergy shots.  Last week was pretty miserable, and I'm in a fight with my insurance company about getting my allergy meds refilled.  But when I got home from the ride yesterday - a rainy, damp ride, which usually tamps down the pollen - I felt like maybe instead of an allergy attack, a cold was trying to sneak in.  So I canceled all my plans for the day and fed my body a big stack of things that I hope will help it fight whatever germs are trying to invade.  I woke up this morning feeling still a bit tired but more like myself, so hopefully I knocked those bitches right out.


How was your weekend?  What are you training for right now?  Did you have to clean a pile of dead worms off your bike this weekend too?