Just because I can...

With the recent Silverman event, I didn’t get a chance to do the typical relaxed Sunday bike ride. So come Monday I was jonesing.

As it happened, Monday was Veterans Day. Meaning for me at least, this was a holiday.

Now I don’t know if you remember back to those high/middle school days but I remember skipping school with some friends (ditching). It was great! You hung out with your friends doing exciting, most likely stupid, things when you should have been at school. Perfect! I was hooked. I also recall waking up for school and just not wanting to go. So I ditched, by myself. Fun right??

NOPE!

The most boring time e-v-e-r! Nothing to do, because all your friends are in school. Nothing to watch (all soap operas). No one to talk to and nothing to do. Total boredom.

This is how I look at most holidays. Often I find that I am the only one of my friends who gets the holidays off (its Las Vegas, everyone has a funky schedule), so I dread these holidays.

This time my love took a half day off, which I felt extremely guilty over, while I was happy she was there, I felt like I was stealing her away from work. While she there, boredom was kept at bay. However, the second she had to go to work, boredom reared its ugly head.

I was faced with two choices TV or exercise (typically I would read, but for some reason that wasn’t appealing to me). Rather than veg away on the TV, I decided to do something productive.

I quickly got a wild hair up my wazzoo and decided to ‘race’ an Olympic Tri [minus the swim, so I guess that would be a…what?..Not a duathlon…so a…??...whatever!)

Now normally, I race Sprints. In fact I had never biked more than 15-18 miles before, so this was a big leap. But I figured I had some time and I wanted to see if it could be done.

Once on the bike I quickly learned that 25 miles is a LONG distance. I did the typical trail, then took another trail then hit the road, then the major roads, the side roads, the back roads, everything!

I’m sure the experienced riders have a few great roads they know and have a path all planned, but what I learned just stumbling around, is that every road ends too quickly or takes you too far away.

Next time, get a good route planned before.

Bike – 25.80 miles – 1:46:31 (14.5 mph)

The run was pretty much the same thing. Without a clear plan, the path I thought would take me 6 miles only took me 5 miles so there was a mile where I wandered around my neighborhood trying to make up the distance [and that’s why my last mile is so long…and that's the story I’m sticking too! ;-) ]

Run - 6.1 miles – 1:08:34 (11:00/mi)

Mile 1 – 10:33
Mile 2 – 11:21
Mile 3 – 11:05
Mile 4 – 10:16
Mile 5 – 10:54
Mile 6 – 11:47
Mile 7 (0.10 mi) – 1:24

Now before you start thinking that I’m good at running and can negatively split my run, let me explain that there was a slight bit of cheating involved here.

My shoes started bothering me after mile one and by mile two, I was dying. At mile 3, I stopped and readjusted my shoes. When I stop, my watch automatically stops too (convenient when at a stop light or forced to give directions). Of course while adjusting the shoes, I also caught my breath, brought my heart down – basically rested. As soon as the shoes were fixed, I took off running, but the damage was already done, I was cheating time. Of course this was further compounded by the fact that I did it several times (damn shoes kept killing me), until basically they were almost untied and I was barefoot.

So there you have it! I did an Olympic Tri (or whatever!).

Total time: 2:52:41 – 31.90 miles (2395 calories spent!!)

Now I didn’t time my transition, because it was pathetic. I went in checked on the animals, did a load of laundry, and had a glass of water. So it was probably 10 minutes. Not close to real race conditions but, at least I did it.

If I take my times and add in my normal T2 time, I get 2:52:41+1:30= 2:53:11. Compare that to 2007’s Rage in the Sage (which coincidently, because of weather, didn’t have a swim either, so it perfect!), that puts me in 206th place.

Which is …exactly where I’m always at. Back of the pack. Doesn’t matter if it’s Sprint or Olympic.

So the good news…I suck just as much on Olympic as I do on Sprint!

Other good news is that I have 4 months to train for my next Sprint (and I’ll be damned if I’m back of the pack then)!