Possible Bike Route/Loops this weekend.

http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/il/willowbrook/571428455

Anybody wanna join us?

May be out this way biking saturday or sunday.... need to get in some hill work before Galena, not that the little bit of time between now and then will make a huge difference but just making some loops for hills will prepare me a little bit. Much like Waddler I've never been a stander on hills so I'll not only practice that, getting out of the saddle, but also work on the gearing, and not being so paranoid of the downhill - have to remember to let it fly sometimes because that fast downhill will be what helps get up the next hill.

We'd ride around here last year before Galena, out Glen Ellyn and Wheaton way and there was this hill on Summit that kicked my ass, then what I presumed to be a downhill that would have me going what felt fast about 20ish........... well I was always so parnoid of that downhill UNTIL I did Galena and the WI IM bike route... kinda freaks you out when you look down and your speed is in excess of 25 - 30mph, on a bike! sometimes 40mph on route we did in Wisconsin - after that the next time I hit that downhill and well the uphill on Summit even, they were like anthills, and I found myself laughing to myself about how scared I was previously....

DUH moment

Ok sometimes I can be pretty blonde and I mean no offense to blondes its just a figure of speech in our world today, so get your panties out of an uproar....

Maybe its not a duh moment maybe... yea.... I just... um.... looked at the numbers wrong... in all my number stuff the other day, I was under some whacked thought yard was more than a meter.... DUH KIM, it is not - I was totally looking at that converter in the wrong way.

BUT who cares meter, schmeter, yard, whatever.... I DO know I swam .82something of a mile and THAT is what's important here!

I plead to much stress because its the final week of this quarter AND I'm all excited about taking the summer off! What was EYE thinking.... full time work and 16credit hours on top of that, am I NUTS!

Starting to like this swimming thing

Well sans the older YMCA crowd in the morning. Cat woke me up at 3:30 for Lord only knows what, rolled over went back to sleep and then the alarm goes off, Kevin jumps out of bed and says are you hitting the shower first... uh shower, for what, he said for work.... I'm looking outside, its still dark, looking at the clock that says 4:15ignore that he said its not right... so I'm looking at the darnkess again realizing there is no freaking way, unless a storm is brewing that its 6:15 and not 4:15 - so finally he looked at his watch DUH ya nut! He climbs back into bed and while I was tempted to do the same... I didn't. Got up and got on my suit and decided today would be a swim day - would like to go tonight but we are suppose to head to a friends in Elgin for dinner.

I was surprised no sore legs, no sore hiney from the ride yesterday, not even the sit bones are sore - hoping the bike fit adjustment and new seat/post are a contributor to all that. The pool felt good, I know most don't care for the pool to be warm, I do, course I'm not doggin' it in the water either, I'm just trying to work my way up yardage/distance wise - still feel like a weenie compared to how far some swim but in my own due time - so today was 30 laps or 60 lengths or 1500 yards or is that pool meters... not sure guess I need to first figure out difference between yard/meter to know how much it really matters eh? Should know but those ole metric skills left me 20+ years ago... which is really funny in some fashion because I can recall about later part of grade school or maybe jr high where they were drilling metric into our head because EVERYTHING was going to change to metric...hhmm guess their still workin' on that one.

Ok according to worldwide Metric calculator (isn't the internet a great thing sometimes) 25 yards = 22.86 meters - so unless I'M looking at this wrong, a yard is farther than a meter. So 1.2 MILES = 2112 yrds or 1932.21 meters. So today I swam
.85227 of a mile then. Maybe I need to do that conversion all the time because it just mentally makes more sense to me, to know how close I am to that 1.2 mile swim. And I know EYE will have to go farther because if I don't do that distance in training, I will lose it during the race.

I never understood marathon training programs where the longest training run is 22ish miles.... uh for me.... I need to at some point in training, go the entire distance I will go at the race. I mean even with a training run of 22 miles, in the actual marathon I still have 4.2 flippin' miles to go... HELLO thats a lot.

Case in point, last year when I trained for SF10 the longest training run, and I think it was 2 or 3 wks out from the acutal Soldier Field 10 miler, was 8 miles, so for ME mentally I had no idea what those extra 2 miles would hold - now I'm no seasoned runner so maybe as you get better at this stuff these kinda things don't matter, but I was running an 11 minute mile right up until mile 8 on race day, I had my Garmin and I knew my clock time too... but at mile 8 I feel apart, I had never gone farther than 8 miles and those last two seemed like hell to me, I walked more in those two miles, I felt winded, tired, all I wanted was the finish line... and in the end those last two miles killed me and my time. I ended up with an 11:55 pace and I know in my heart it was those last 2 miles - I truly feel HAD I gone 10 miles in the course of training, I think I would have been better off... All in all I did what I wanted to do, had fun that weekend with friends and did the thing in under 2 hrs - B A R E L Y - but still under 2 hrs - however had I been able to keep my earlier 11min miles I would have finished in 1:49:something....

So my point here is IF and its a capital IF... I feel I can be ready for a 1/2 IM in September, then it means I must swim farther than 1.2 miles, bike longer than 56 miles and run more than 13.1 miles in my course of training or at some point during the race I will fall apart....

Now if I was a tough beotch like Crackhead.... hell I'd do a 1/2 IM at some point AS training... but I'm not that tough, hell I'd like to channel just an ounce of what she's got in there - but I have to do this, IF I do it, Kim way.

Great Ride, even BETTER peeps

Can't say its my first ride of 2008 outdoors but certainly the first one of any distance... Been reading blogs and exchanging emails with Iron Snoopy... She invited me to a ride she and some friends were doing today, the Folks on Spokes Easter Ride. I am SO SO SO glad that I went.

Had my alarm set for 4:30 wanted to give myself plenty of time to get my stuff together, get out the door and leave plenty of time to get to Governors State University... Well I guess I was excited about going, I woke up at 3:45, laid around till 4 then just said heck with it and got up. I mostly had what I needed already sitting out was just a matter of putting it in the car - so I ate, loaded up the bike and off I went. Well glad I left early cause I missed a turn... YES imagine even with a freaking GPS... BUT its kind of hard to tell where 294/94/80 split off and... well... I missed the 80/57 exit - no worries good ole GPS had me back on track in no time - now had I missed that split w/o GPS, hell I'd probably be in Indiana right now - or gotten frustrated and gave up. Got to the college plenty early, went inside, used the facilities, then waited for Snoopy and party...

Just as she said she'd be wearing a green/black jacket and have her 6'5" accessory, otherwise known as the hubby with her - made it pretty easy to spot them... they got signed up and we agreed to meet in front of the college.... well imagine my surprise when I'm taking my bike off the rack and of all the places to park, they had parked right next to me.... I think it was a sign of good things to come - I mean really as large as both parking lots are, we never discussed what cars we'd be in, or where we'd park, and we park NEXT to each other?

So we all got ready to go, made intro's, and off we went... Snoopy's hubby was going with the fast kids and planned to do 50, ended up doing 68, so Snoopy, Waddler, Rhonda and I headed off on the 38 mile route - had some bike trouble at first but got back on track...

Now let me tell ya Waddler is anything BUT slow.... she and Rhonda were going at quite a clip... I don't think I could have kept up with them, least not today just trying to get my bike legs back - but Dawn hung back with me and we chatted 90% of the ride, sans the spots it was to hairy to ride two abreast, and damn I tell ya 25 miles were gone before I even realized it - She is a VERY lovely person and I hope to get to know her better I truly enjoyed her company today - I'm only sorry I felt like I was holding her back speed wise... after not being on the bike since like Sept of 07, there was just no way I could have kept up a 17mph pace. I can't wait for Galena now where I will get to spend some more time getting to know Karen and Dawn better....

And the sponsored ride... good gosh don't think I've ever been on such a ride with great rest stops, they had sandwiches, cookies, bagels, fresh veggies, pretzels, hot chili, oranges, banana's, and a great crew to serve it up - definately a ride I'll participate in again. And the weather, OMG, it was fab!

According to cyclometer we did 41.67 miles, per my Garmin, 39 something, so we decided we'd call it 40, in just short of 3 hrs w/short stops... according to my Garmin I burned 1800 calories, so its no wonder I feel ready to eat everything AND the house, but I'm keeping it in check, I've got 40 LBS to get off me.

All in all it was a GREAT day, great weather, great ride, AWESOME people! Who could ask for more!