Pictures of the Week

Checking in and Tunes

Not much new to report here on the homefront. I’m enjoying the warm Spring weather we’re having and training is rolling along nicely. Today started out just as the last 3 or 4 Saturdays...WET. Luckily it stopped raining mid morning and I was able to get out and get in a good Saturday ride after lunch.

I've been riding with the local race team quite a bit lately and man can those guys go. I've gotten dropped a couple of times, but I'm enjoying riding with them anyway….at least as long as I can hang on. Even their slowest riders can really crank it. I'd never be able to push myself to go that hard while training alone. And, it's great to just have other folks to train with after doing so much solo training last year.

Riding with the team is one of the things I'm doing to try to improve my biking (my weakest sport). I'm shooting for 4 rides per week. One with the team as speedwork. One hillier session to build strength. One longer endurance session and one shorter recovery ride. Hopefully after a few months of hitting those sessions consistently, I'll be able to see some improvement. I'll still be swimming and running, but at a reduced level for a while.

I mentioned a few posts back that I might put up an original tune at some point in the future. After a few post ride Heinekens this afternoon, I decided to post not one…but three. Mainly because I can’t figure out how to configure the player to only show one and I didn’t want to delete the other two from the host site. The tunes are just little acoustic instrumentals. One is kinda light hearted, one is straight up bluegrass and one is a bit sad/melancholy/mellow. Nothing too fancy.
I’ve never had any formal music training, so just overlook the mistakes.
Let me know if the link for the player doesn’t work correctly.


Tunes

Happy Training/Listening,
TJ

No Words Needed

Soggy Saturday

Feeling much better today, but the weather conspired against me.
It started raining this morning and didn't stop until late in the afternoon.
The lightning was cracking most of the day as well.

I plan to get out early in the morning for a run...the first in a week.
The weather is predicted to be much better tomorrow.

But first I'm heading over to Ironman Live to catch some of the action at IM OZ before calling it a day.


The view from my patio today.....

Happy Training,
TJ

18,400 miles in 195 days

This may be old news to some but it's new to me.
While perusing the May issue of Men's Journal, I came across an article about 25 year old Mark Beaumont and was blown away by his record setting jaunt around the world.....on a bike.
He set out from Paris last summer and rolled back into town 195 days later...almost three months....THREE...MONTHS...... faster than the previous record.

He took one rest day every two weeks. Lost 14 pounds. Grew a beard. Slept in police stations for protection in Pakistan. Got knocked from his bike by a scooter, a donkey, and old lady driving her car(in Louisiana). Says he couldn't find anything healthy to eat in the American South (gravy pours into water bottles...) and struggled there (here) because of it.

But the thing that amazes me, as an endurance athlete, is this. While carrying 200 lbs, (yep...200...pounds) of gear on his bike, he covered 100 miles DAILY. A freaking century every day....carrying 200 lbs. That is just crazy strong. CRAY.......Z.

The fact that much of the distance covered HAD to have been mountainous, makes this feat even more mind boggling.

Mark's journey is truly amazing and inspiring.

Dogwoods and Bugs

The dogwoods are in full bloom.

Bugs doing what bugs do during Spring.