twothirds

I did NOTHING over the long weekend. I suck.

I swam ~3000 yards with Palo Alto Masters at noon today. I bailed around 3000 yards with most of the workout being short-yardage repeats. Toward the end of the workout, I swam 1×500 for time and went a blazing 5:50 (1:10/100). I am slow right now*.

*Back in the day, I was a 4:29 500 yard freestyler (53.9/100), but then again, that day was 8+ years ago. Right now, I do not even think I can swim 1×100 in 53.9 seconds! I would be very happy if I could get down to a 5 minute 500 yd free.

The chain went back on the bike last night. Chains are such a pain in the ass to deal with. I think I spent about 90 minutes taking out a link and getting it back together. The main issue is probably the lack of a good chain tool. My chain tool is really more designed for travel in a saddle bag. I guess the good thing is that I actually can keep it in my saddle bag for the next time this happens on the road.

The bike ride to work–great!
The bike ride back home–not-so-great!

2.47 miles*
27 minutes*
5.4 avg*

About 1.25 miles from work, at the corner of Willow and 101, my chain decided to come off! Good thing I wear mountain bike shoes for my bike commuting. I was actually making some good time while hoofing it. My cateye was showing 4mph for most of the walk. I can’t even imagine doing that walk in roadie shoes.

This is actually the first chain accident I have ever had. Should I throw a chain tool into my backpack? I am already lugging close to 10 pounds with my laptop. What’s a few more grams. While I am at it, how about a wrench set? Some spare spokes? An extra tire? Before you know it, I just might be a rolling bike shop.

At least I do not have to take public transit again. The SAG wagon should be here shortly.

*even split between cycling and “hoofing”

I biked to work today. It looks like this will not be a problem anymore. When I left at 7:15ish, there was not one cloud in the sky, and weather was probably in the mid to high 50’s. Almost perfect!

Anyway…
17.5 miles
58 minutes
17.9 avg

A couple years back, I was able to get into work with a 20 mph average which is not an easy feat when you are dealing with traffic lights (and a 10 pound backpack). I’ll shoot for that in June/July as I increase my speed work.

A few weeks ago, Velo News launched what seems to be a rather popular reader-supplied photo gallery. Today, Triathlete Magazine launched their own photo gallery. I believe this is the first for a major print or online triathlon magazine. I find it rather odd that Inside Tri does not have a photo gallery of their own. After all, Velo News and Inside Tri are owned by the same parent company. Either someone needs to start passing our memos, or someone is not reading them.

I went for a 37 mile bike ride today. Man was I tired! I hauled ass on my ride last Thursday after I broke down, and my legs paid the price. I am just under three-months from my race this year and I need to start upping the miles. I hope to get up to 80 mile rides for most of June.

I decided to risk biking to work yesterday even with the rain in the morning. After my morning meetings from home, I saw some blue sky, so I hoped on the bike and went into work. I had some bad luck along the way.

Eight miles into my ride, I got a flat tire after hitting a rock.

Things got worse.

My spare tire turned out to be a two-pump chump. As I was pumping it up, the valve broke.

Things got worse.

My package of emergency patches, which I probably could have used on the original tube, was empty. (Mental note: Get more patches.)

At that point, I was officially stranded.

Thankfully, public transportation was an option where I broke down. I was on central expressway half-way between the Sunnyvale and Mountain View train stations, which would have been a hike, but I was able to walk to a light rail station that connected with CalTrain.

Things got better.

As I got to the light rail station approx 1/4 mile away, the train pulled up just as I got my ticket. I don’t think the trolleys run that often mid-day, so a minute slower and I would have been there for a long time.

As for caltrain, that wait was pretty short as well. The train pulled up after a 10 minute wait.

I took caltrain to downtown Sunnyvale so I could get to a bike shop and fix my tube. I purchased a few tubes, borrowed a pump, fixed the flat and went along my way back to work. Total time for the detour was about 60-90 minutes. Not too bad…

Things got worse.

Oh, and things got worse again. It started raining again. If I had not broken down, I would have made it to work rain-free. Oh well….

Looking at my log stats, “long testies” got someone to my blog
I am really curious what that person was looking for…

It is bike to work day, and it is very windy and rainy right now

This sucks since I really wanted to ride in today. I have a few morning phone meetings, so there is still some hope of riding in later today if it stops real soon now.

Usually I am not that adverse to riding in the rain, but a wet dirty bike in the office is frowned upon, and my laptop, which rides along with me in a backpack, does not get along too well with water. Oh well…

Open Water swimming is a niche that has been lacking a good home page on the web. This might be promising, but I have my doubts with this statement, “A portion of this web site in the future will be restricted to members who pay an annual fee of $10 a year. This section includes pool workouts, blogs, forum and newsletter…”. Ever heard of google ads? If one builds a good content rich site (events, tips, general articles, etc), google ads should be able to net more money than a $10 fee.

Who knows, maybe if I get dissatisfied enough, I might have to take on openwater.3athlete.com…