Go Jump In A Lake

This week started off nice and easy - and then turned into a BEAST.  You'll see what I mean.  I should warn you that I become rant-y by Saturday and Sunday.

Monday, May 27th: 
I love any training plan that says: Enjoy your day. No workout!  I may not have worked out, but I sure as hell worked.  My house was a huge disaster and it took all day, but it's mostly in order now - which is a very good thing since the rest of the week is jam packed!  On a fun note, I made my favorite spicy enchiladas for dinner.  These are always better as leftovers since they seem to get even spicier after a night in the refrigerator!

Spicy cheesy goodness

Tuesday, May 28th:
I woke up to pouring rain and thunderstorms this morning - which didn't bode well for the group ride that was on tonight's schedule.  I made the decision to leave my bike at home when I left for work and wait and see what happened.  As fate would have it, the weather cleared up so I left the office around 4:30pm, rushed home, threw on my bike clothes, grabbed the new Garmin, strapped my bike to the rack, and headed out to meet my team in one of the far flung suburbs.  As I was driving, the sky opened up again just long enough to drench my bike and stopped just as I was getting off the freeway.  Fortunately, another 15 minutes of driving along at 45mph was enough to dry it off and I pulled into the parking lot with about 5 minutes to spare. After a brief lesson on the rules of the road and some tips on group ride etiquette our little herd of newbies followed the Iron Cheerleader out onto the country roads.  I haven't been outside on my bike since early last fall, so I spent the first 2 miles just remembering how to move through my gears and praying that I wouldn't have a low (or high) speed tip over.  The Iron Cheerleader led us up some pretty good hills before delivering us to the bottom of a whopping big hill and instructing us to do whatever we had to, other than standing up on the pedals, to make it to the top.  Honestly...it wasn't that bad...until he had us do it 4 more times! I will say though, that flying down the hill at an insane speed (I think I topped out near 24mph) was really fun - as long as I didn't think about how much it would hurt if I crashed!  Once the hills were over, we did a few fast loops through a subdivision before heading back to our cars.  At one point on the way back, we rode through a park and I could see fog beginning to drift over the pathway.  It looked really cool and kind of eerie - especially when my imagination started running wild and Dementors from Harry Potter popped into my head!

No Patronuses Were Cast On This Bike Ride

Once we got back to the parking lot, the whole group sat down to a pasta dinner - courtesy of the Iron Cheerleader.  It was really nice getting to know my fellow newbies over a glass of wine and plate full of carbs.

Overall pace for the ride was kind of slow, but I'm particularly pleased with some of the later miles since they were done on long stretches of road.  I think they bode well for my bike time at the South Shore Duathlon next week.

Wednesday, May 29th:
My bike did make the trip to work with me today since I had an appointment  for a tune up and my office is about half way between home and the bike shop.  I definitely got some strange looks when people stopped in to chat and had to be warned not to bump into it!

I delivered my bike to the mechanic at 11:30 this morning and they promised that it would be ready by Friday night, which was just fine by me since I don't need it again until Sunday.  Imagine my surprise when I got a phone call at 5:30 this evening that it was ready to be picked up!  I was supposed to be doing a swim/run brick workout today, but one quick look at the forecast made me chuck those plans out the window in favor of picking up my bike.  It's supposed to be rainy and crappy out for the next 2 days and I really didn't want my freshly lubed bike getting all wet and undoing all their hard work!  Since I ended up with an unexpected free night, Mr. R&R and I took advantage of it and enjoyed dinner and a beer on the patio at our local Irish pub.  I think it's exactly what I needed.

Thursday, May 30th:
Time to test out the new Garmin in the pool! I futzed around with the settings before I even went near the water, hoping that I would be happy with my choice of data fields.  After suiting up, I hopped in and began my 50 yard warm up. The warm up was followed by a 4x50 main set and a 50 yard cool down.  The watch was definitely helpful since I didn't lose track of how many laps I'd done and how many I had left to go.

Once I was done with the swim, it was back to the locker room to change into my running clothes and a quick drive down the road to a recreational trail so I could run two miles.  I started off at a comfortable pace and before I knew it, my watch was vibrating/beeping that a mile had gone by - the wind at my back was definitely a help!  When I turned around, that strong wind was in my face and I noticed a lot of dark clouds piling up off to the West, so I tried to step up my pace to get back to my car since I had no desire to get drenched in a rainstorm.  Naturally, since I was in a hurry, my shoe came untied and when I stopped to tie it, I wasn't really paying attention to my surroundings.  Dumb move.  When I looked up, I found myself nearly nose-to-nose with a deer.  I'm not sure which one of us was more surprised, but he took off running in one direction and I hauled ass in the direction of my car. I made it just as a few raindrops were beginning to fall.

Friday, May 31st:
I was supposed to swim. I didn't. Instead, I ordered my team tri top (much cheaper than anything else I've seen on Amazon or in stores).

After that, Mr. R&R and I met up with one of his friends for drinks and appetizers since the friend was moving to San Francisco the next morning. Wine and duck nachos were consumed and goodbyes were said.  I got home later than I would have liked, but people are more important than pool time.

Saturday, June 1st:
This morning I jumped into a 60 degree, weed-filled lake for my first open water swim.  Once I was in the water, the temperature wasn't too bad, so at least I wasn't worried about freezing to death.  Of course that left plenty of room in my head for horrible thoughts about weeds and fish.  Ugh.  The Pewaukee Triathlon requires all new triathletes to complete an open water swim certification  prior to race day and today was the first opportunity.  Part 1 of the certification involved swimming out to a buoy and then treading water for 10 minutes.  Let me just say that I hate treading water. I've never been very good at it and have always felt that it used up far too much energy.  After surviving that part (I consider the fact that I didn't have a panic attack even though the weeds were wrapping around my arms and legs the whole time to be a big success.), we had to complete a 1/4 mile open water swim.  Yeah. That didn't happen.  Honestly, I was a little pissed off about the whole thing since we'd originally been told that this whole clinic didn't involve going in water any deeper than our shoulders.  I can assure you that the water was much deeper than that - and the weeds were just ridiculous. We were also told that we didn't need wetsuits - even though a wetsuit provides 3-4% more buoyancy in the water and helps conserve a ton of energy. Even the Iron Cheerleader seemed a little surprised by this turn of events.

 I'm doubly pissed off that I failed since today's opportunity was free.  After this I have to pay for the "privilege" of swimming in said weed-filled lake to get certified.  As of right now, I'm planning on making my next attempt at getting open-water certified on June 10th at a wetsuit demo clinic.  I wasn't planning on wearing a wetsuit for the tri, but today has me seriously re-thinking that plan.  I think the added buoyancy plus the fact that there will be less bare skin exposed to the weeds/fish may be worth losing a little time in T1 while I squirm out of the thing.  Stay tuned...I'm sure there will be more to this saga.

Should I sew one of these to my swimsuit? 

Sunday, June 2nd: 
I really enjoyed today's bike ride since I had Mr. R&R to keep me company!  We loaded up our bikes and drove away from all the construction that surrounds our neighborhood to a local recreational trail.  It's not much to look at, but it does provide a relatively good riding surface with only a few road crossings.

It was nice to get in one more ride outside before the South Shore Duathlon next weekend and this is probably the best ride I've ever had on the road in terms of my cadence.  Maybe there's hope afterall!

When I got home, I discovered that yesterday's open water swim seems to be the gift that keeps on giving (*dripping sarcasm*).  I have this ugly rash all over my arms, legs, and chest - the likely candidate is swimmers itch - caused by a parasite in the water that attempts to burrow into human skin.  I am not going back in that water without a damn wetsuit.  I don't need to spend the entire summer covered in these nasty things.

Now it's off to catch up on a few projects I neglected during the week, make dinner, finish my laundry, and maybe go for a short run later. 

1 week until South Shore. 6 weeks until Pewaukee!

Week 5 Totals:
Swim: 493 yards
Bike: 22.88 miles
Run:  2 miles
Total Time:  2 hours, 24 minutes