Faster In Water: A Few Firsts

Last week for our Wednesday tri group workout, we were biking. Hills, to be more specific.

Now, these hills weren't new. I had been up one many times and the other just once (and that was after a 45 min swim and 2 loops on a third hill). I knew they would be hard, but could be conquered.
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We started at B.S. Hill (haha, love the initials). It was slow going. As I was halfway up, I noticed that my gears were funny. I never touch my gears for the front, just out of habit, but the bike shop had left it differently than they found it. I changed gears...in the middle of a hill. Yeah, I can be an idiot sometimes. I was huffing and puffing, but did not fall over :) The ride back down got me a sweet 30mph. Love that!

We rode from that end of the park to the middle, where the other big hill is located. I did this hill on July 4th. I didn't remember it being that bad, but I knew it would still be hard. I followed my group up the hill...slowly, very slowly, I made it to the top. Ugh, ouch, argh. Breathing really hard. "Crap!", I told myself, "I thought the first hill was always the worst!" The ride back down was a breezy 28mph, not too shabby.

I did not want to do the hill a second time, but I told myself not to be a weenie. Hills are good for you and this one isn't insurmountable. I started out again. I was cranking my legs as hard as I could and in my easiest gear. Only looking about 10 feet ahead of me, so as not to psych myself out by looking at the top. It was hard. REALLY hard. I was passed by a group of riders that was all matchy matchy and envied them going by so quickly. I finally made it to the top and took a short ride around to catch my breath.

On the descent, I could tell my bike felt weird. Like shaky. 28mph isn't the best time to think "gee, I hope I don't have a flat", but yeah, it was. I made it to the bottom, found my group, and confirmed that I had my first flat. Tri Coach Jeff put some CO2 in my tube and he followed me the mile or two back to the YMCA. He checked out my tire and didn't find any glass in the tire, replaced my tube, and got the wheels back to their normal again.

Then he put on my new pedals!!! I was VERY nervous to go clipless, but Tri Coach Jeff and teammate Karen were both very encouraging (and thank goodness my coach is a former bike tech!). My right shoe was decently hard to clip in, but it wasn't bad. I got going a little bit and got my right to clip in pretty easily. When it came time to try to stop, the action of twisting my foot to unclip was easy. I think that having toe clips as pedals for the first 5 months was to my advantage. Whenever I needed to stop with the toe clips, I had to wiggle my foot out, which is the same premise as the clipless. I rode around the YMCA parking lot with Tri Coach Jeff and teammate Karen until the street lights came on. After riding hills with a flat tire, riding in a flat parking lot with sufficient tires and clipless pedals felt amazing!

That night I woke up to pee and thought "wow! I'm pretty hungry!", but was able to go back to sleep. The next night, I had my Run for God group (31 min run) and then did another 7.7 miles on my bike with my clipless pedals. I had some snacks at R4G (cheese, crackers, orange slices, a few chocolate covered pretzels, etc). At home, I had 3 eggs and 1/2 a taquito. It sounded like enough food to me, and I wasn't hungry at the time. I knew I could have eaten more, but the scale had been dropping all week and I really wanted a good weigh in on Friday.

I woke up at 2am and thought I just had to pee. Nope, laid there and tossed and turned and kept thinking how hungry I was until 2:40. I got up, went downstairs and had the other half of that taquito. My kindle battery was nearly dead, so I couldn't entertain myself that way. I don't have a TV in my room either. The TV in the living room is too far away to see w/o glasses. So I ended up sitting my bed, eating Aldi brand cheetos, in the dark, at 3am. Not my finest moment!

First time waking up b/c I was hungry. Pretty lame! I had that "do xyz to lose weight" mentality and let me tell you, it was stupid! I would much rather get a full night's sleep on a full belly and be up a few tenths of a pound rather than go through that again! In the morning, I weighed in at 219.2, which officially marks 70 pounds lost from my highest weight and 60 pounds lost since the beginning of 2012! How awesome is that? On one hand, the changes I've made make me totally believe it and on the other hand I'm like "have I really lost that much?!?". Yep!

BTW, TeenSwimSis turned 15 this weekend!