A Nice Ride, For a Change

What a weekend! First off, Thursday's workout was harder than I thought as it seems to have triggered an, as I call it, exercise-induced cold. That's when you exercise so hard that if there is a cold bug within a 30-mile radius, it will find you. Add to that the fact that I didn't bring enough food to work on Friday (hey, if my kids want to get into my banana stash, I'm not going to discourage that!) and you have the makings of, at least, a mild cold. I went to bed early Friday night because I wanted to wake up at 5:30 Saturday morning for a 20-mile ride at 6:30.

Woke up Saturday and still had a trace of the cold. So what did I do? I rode, of course. It was a pretty good ride, my first longer ride with the new clipless pedals. All went well and I went straight from the bike ride to a shower and shave (with a quick detour to my training log at BeginnerTriathlete.com) because I had to take my daughter to a concert in downtown L.A. I did manage to eat my post-workout food and drink, though. After the concert, we went to the L.A. Auto Show because my girl likes to sit in vans and Hummers. I could feel my body wanting food and liquids the whole time so I kept fueling up the whole day. Definitely went to bed early Saturday night...

...because I had a 25-mile ride to do on Sunday! This was on a brand new route and it was just going to be an easy ride. It started out well, except I thought it was a bad sign that the street that had been marked as having a bike route on the L.A. Bike Map had its bike route lines removed. Oh well, it was early on a Sunday morning, which meant few cars on the road and few people pulling away from the curb. After a while, a bike route with lines showed up just in time for a short hill that seemed to go straight up. I actually had to stand in the pedals because that was the only way to keep the bike moving (I now see what they mean about non-clipped pedals possibly causing injuries when your foot slips off going up a hill). Even then it was very slow going. Like I said, short hill and there was a very long downhill on the other side. That was the only hill where I lost my breath; on the others I just downshifted and took my time. As I was heading up Balboa, past an area damaged in one of the recent fires, listening to a woodpecker whacking a tree, it occurred to me that this was the first bike ride I have taken since I started this triathlon training that I could actually enjoy. Usually I'm trying to see how fast I can go or working on not being such a wuss up hills. This ride was all about taking it easy. I can get used to that. After I order a heavy duty case for my iPhone I will add some pictures to this route's map and post it here.

Heading up to my parents' house for Thanksgiving this year (first time in several years I'm not making Thanksgiving dinner!). I have a route planned for the visit up there. However, going out in this morning's bit of cold has me wondering about that decision, since it's several degrees colder there and I don't have much cold-weather gear. I'll probably just dig out my gloves and add an undershirt to my clothing and it will be fine.

Oh, it looks like I will be doing the Merced Triathlon next October. A friend from high school told me he'd enter it if I did. He wants to do what they're calling the short course sprint (400y pool swim, 6mi ride, 2 mi run). I can do that.