"Get off the F#$%&ing ROAD!!"

Heya,

I trust everyone's final prep is going well. At least if you're doing IMC, we're nearly on 4 weeks to go. Ohhhhhhhhh so scary, if you're just starting your training welllll there's always next year. hee hee j/k.

Tuesday my legs were hurting, but I thought with a really good warmup I could still go do the tuesday IG workout. As I drove across the city I could see the clouds rolling in. Hopefully we don't get any rain. Oh well as long as we get to start with no rain we'll be fine. The wind was picking up and in the time I drove across the city I'm betting the temp dropped some 10 degrees? I got to the church where we start early so I hung out and wondered if anyone would show up. I had my running shoes along so I was prepping myself for an alternate workout if no one shows. Well Andrea dashed that idea when she promptly drove up and unloaded her bike. I guess we're riding, she is one tough cookie and if she can do it, so can I. Besides it's much easier doing the prescribed workout with someone else. Misery loves company? There were a few others that showed up too, Iona, Darren, annnd I think that was it. The warmup went well, no rain yet, but there was a stiff cross wind(from the north). As soon as we hit Cochrane and headed north and to a smooth highway parallel to the Crowchild trail heading back to Calgary. I think I initiated the first interval and my legs were not happy at first. After like 5 minutes of the first 10min tempo I wondered if I could finish this. Maybe I should just ride easy with the rest of them. But as I was hammering Darren pulled up with me. It was nice, he's really strong and pushed me really hard for 2 out of the 4 times 10 minutes. We rode the second one back towards Cochrane. Then back to Calgary for the final 2. It rained a bit when we turned around to ride back to Calgary, but were able to ride out of it. I worried a bit about crashing, cause I was leaning quite a bit with the cross wind. During the last one I started it and Darren came hammering by me. I don't like to back down from a challenge so I pushed so hard to get on his wheel. It's soooooo hard to do when someone gets the jump and goes by you fast, you have to react really quickly and stomp down on the pedals as hard as you can. Once you're in the slipstream you can recover. And recover I did, then later passed him back and we see sawed for the remainder of the tempo portion.

Wednesday was rainy as well, but it held off till after the open water swim. Kelsey's friend once again got us into the Sundance lake, very nice of him!! I'm currently swimming twice a week in some kind of a lake, which I think will help me a lot come race day. The wetsuit problems are almost nil and I'm swimming(sighting) like a pro. :) Not as fast as one though. :P That'll never happen. Kelsey had invited the tri cops grp which was awesome cause none of IG's grp even showed. YOU BASTARDS!!! j/k So I got to meet some people, thankfully I didn't embarrass myself this time with the introductions. Course it didn't involve a 160km ride in the heat. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. So we swam a full loop of the lake. I followed this lady(I forget her name already) and pretty much stuck with her no problem till my asthma started bugging me. Maybe the pace was faster than I thought, I'm not sure, all I know is my breathing was gaspy and I wasn't getting the air I needed. Oh well I got distracted by all the minnows, wowzers there was a lot of them. I'd be swimming along, looking down and all of a sudden I'm swimming through a school of little minnows, thousands of them. It felt like my entering arm/hand would brush against them, but they kept clear of the big rubber dying "fish".

After the swim I killed a little time in the south, got somthing to eat, then met Curtis for a longer run at the res. That's about when the rain started, at times it poured. Thankfully it didn't rain too much on us, only poured once that I remember. We did a full loop of the resevoir(however you spell that) and did a little extra. My legs felt like lead after the days of cycling, I also had some stomach problems. But when it felt bad, we'd just cut back on the pace a bit. Then promptly pick it up. We noticed we both pick up the pace when we start talking about Ironman or work. LOL go figure, any type of emotions, excitement-->IM, or work--->hate(we both hate our jobs and really get worked up talking about it. :P) The run ended and we were cold and wet, 1:45 run in the rain will do that to you. Oh well another confidence builder, being able to run on tired legs.

Yesterday's ride rocked. We again met at the church on crowchild. The warm up consisted of riding to Cochrane and chatting it up with Andrea, Iona, Leslie, Pam, and hmmm roadie type guy I forget his name. I love talking triathlon and could talk for hours, but alas we arrived in Cochrane and needed to do some actual work(workout that is). The plan was 3-4 hills. Greg wanted us to do 4-5, hmmmm and I secretly wanted to do 4. I love hills, but I still thought about the workout all day. It's soooo gonna hurt and I was secretly hoping that IG/Trevor, or anyone else just faster than me wouldn't show. LOL don't tell them, but I knew if they showed, I'd absolutely crush myself trying to keep up, ha ha. Andrea was there, and she's a rock star so we pretty much stuck together. I still worked hard, very hard. Especially on the 3rd and 4th. It takes me like one or two hills to really get warmed up and in a grove. After the third one we descended into town and this guy was honking behind me(although he had plenty of room to get by). He then proceeds to roll down the window and scream at the top of his lungs repeatedly to "Get the F#$^%& off the road". I never really know what to say, these tards usually come out of no where and I had already done 2 hills, I"m not exactly prepared for a reply. Just where were we supposed to ride if we can't go on the road hmmmm??? I asked if he would prefer if we just rode in the ditch? He stopped the car and I'm pretty sure he started to get out of the car. Oh boy now I'm going to get beat up, just great. I kinda turned away, still riding and I think he thought I was leaving so he decided against it and once again repeated his first shreak. I guess I do wander onto the road, but I'm going over the speed limit of 80 and catching up to cars as I go. I even passed a car on the 3rd hill coming down. Go figure, there's just no reasoning with some people and not worth getting into a scuffle with someone like that. I'm glad I didn't really respond, I also told Andrea(although the advice was more for me) that we were NOT going to let this ruin our ride. I'm sure he has some pent up anger from years of commuting back to Cochrane and with always having to deal with cyclists, I guess it must be frustrating for him. Anyways back to the ride, the 3rd hill was fantastic, maybe the adrenaline from that incident helped??? And I had really managed to purge it from my memory. Coming up the 3rd time I was debating, do I go for 4? I was really pushing all I had and at the top my legs confirmed, with a unanimous YEP, WE ARE DONE!! I still wasn't convinced though, then when I saw Leslie going down for her third, it was settled I'm going down for one more. I can do this!! So I shouted to Andrea, egging her on to join me for one more. The Target = Leslie. I hope you don't mind Leslie but I totally marked you climbing up the last time, it helps to have someone to chase. Good job leaving your grp to continue the workout, if everyone had left I'm not sure I woulda stayed for another. I should have timed the climbs, cause I think the 3rd and maybe even 4th were the fastest. I was amazed at how the body can come around. My legs will be completely baked, and somehow I can find some way to make them respond just one more time, and one more time, and again, etc. I think we all felt great on the ride home, having conquered the mini demons. Yes there are demons, even in training rides. Every time you feel like stopping, or feel like quitting early, or not going as hard as you can. Each and every time you lay waste to those negative thoughts your mental strength improves. Bring on the IMC demons I AM READY!!!!