Ketchup

Had a great training week this last week. Not sure I can remember it all so I'll work backwords and just say a few things about it.

Today I lifted and swam at noon at Centennial and ran after dinner. The swim felt great but arms still sore from taking a week off (see below). The run wasn't bad - started slow and increased my past quite a bit. Doing L2L on Saturday so I didn't want to run too hard. Wow, got a 2-a-day in today!

Yesterday I rode for an hour but it was a "wimpy" ride. Felt sluggish and quit as soon as I could.

Tuesday I swam at Master's group. We drove back from Kansas that day so I was in the car for 10 hrs - ugh! Hit the pool as soon as i got back.

Monday - nada. Went to Worlds of Fun in KC. Walked about 5 miles, probably.

Sunday - OK, let's talk about the ride on Sunday! Wowser! Kurt and I were staying at my brother's house in Edgerton, KS. We wanted to ride long so we drove over to Clinton Lake, outside of Lawrence. It was raining and a bit cold. I thought it would be a crummy ride.

We started off with jackets and sleeves on but they quickly came off. The rain stopped and the temps warmed up (as did the humidity!). We headed up toward the dam and wa- la, what did we see but a race in progress. It was the Ironman Kansas 70.3 ! We stopped and watched the cylists fly by and then jumped in when there was break in the pack. Rode up a few steep hills and then stopped at T2 and watched the transition. It was weird, but fun, watching a triathlon instead of participating in it!

Then we headed back to the car. It was almost 10:30 by then. We rode hard across the dam, up the hill, and then down a long steep hill. We got back to the car and I didn't want to stop. I had a good cadence going and felt really strong. Kurt was thinking the same thing I was: I should ride all the way home!

I'm not one to take off on my bike in unknown territory, esp when it involves riding on a highway. It was hot and humid and i had about 30 miles to get home but I heard myself saying to Kurt, "I think I'll try it".

So, I did. I rode all the way back to my brother's house on my own, which we figured was about 30 miles. And it was not an easy 30 miles! There were lots of hills - in fact, the entire way back was up and down. Then there was one long stretch that lasted about 9 miles.

The humidity was terrible and i was sweating like crazy. I had very little shoulder on highway 59 and cars were whizzing by me. But I just didn't want to stop!

The picture above is me finally getting back to my brother's house. I'm pretty amazed that I did it! But I gotta get even longer rides in very soon.

The day before that - last Saturday - Kurt and I went for a long run down the country roads near my brother's house. It was cloudy but warm and humid. We had a great time and ran for a solid 90 minutes.

This Saturday is Lake to Lake olympic triathlon in Loveland. That long ride and run were great training for this event. The only bad thing about our Kansas trip is that I didn't get to swim the entire time. But hopefully it won't affect things too much.

All in all, not a bad week!