Time For Change

Tires that is.

I was about to head out for my ride today and just happened to notice a wee bit of wear on my rear tire. I'm all about getting all the miles I can out of a set of tires, but I think I may have stretched it a bit too long this time.
I'd put new tires on my road bike back during Spring and had only ridden it maybe 200 miles since putting the new tires on. Quick tire swap and the tri bike had fresh treads.
I headed out about 1:30 with no particular route or distance in mind. The weather was gorgeous again...except for a bit of wind. I kept the pace easy to steady, enjoyed the fall weather and ended up with 52 miles.
I ended up the week with 2 swims, 3 runs and 3 rides. I'll probably sneak in another ride tomorrow morning which will give me somewhere around 12 hours for the week.



Last year was the first year KJ's school had a girls U13 soccer team. It was definitely a "building" season. They played hard every game, learned a lot, but never scored a goal.....not one. She got tired of hearing me say, "just hang in there, it'll come".



Fall soccer season started here three weeks ago. First game, they played hard but lost 0-1. Game two, THEY SCORED for the first time EVER!!! Not one but TWO goals. But... they lost a close one with the final score being 2-3. This morning's game started out with the opposing team scoring a goal quickly, but we answered with a goal soon after. We scored another goal before half time to give us our first lead ever. Second half, the girls held the other team at 1 goal and scored two more for our first WIN, 4-1!!!! FINALLY!!!!!!!!
The girls were ecstatic. Actually, I think the parents were more excited than the girls.



Happy Traing!
TJ

Clearing the List

The weather here has been absolutely perfect for training lately. 80s during the day with morning lows in the 60s. Unfortunately, I haven’t trained a lick all week, not until this morning anyway. But, I haven’t been sitting around doing nothing all week. There has been a growing list of things that need to be accomplished around the house, and, that list had not been getting much attention. So, I decided I’d take a break from training and get as many things crossed off the list as possible.

Pine straw cleaned off the roof, check. Hedges trimmed, check. Shrubs pruned, check. Tree limbs and pine cones picked up, check. Lawn cut, check. Wax stripped and reapplied on kitchen floor, check. KJ’s furniture moved back into her room, check. A tired sore TJ, check. I’m not sure which task was to blame, but one of them killed my hamstrings. I got up Thursday or Friday morning and my hammies were aching. They’re still sore, but getting better. So much for that whole being made of iron thing.

A few of us went out for a ride this morning and it was great. Despite having done no training all week, I felt great and rode strong. I ended up with just under 40 miles. The weather was great. Overcast and cool.

I made my reservation for IMFL this week also. I’ll be in town Saturday and Sunday. I doubt I’ll get there in time to see the swim start, but I’ll be there to cheer on the blogger crew as they come through transition. I hope to be there as they cross the finish line also.
I’ll be in the registration line Sunday morning and hope to catch up with some of the new Ironbloggers Sunday.


Happy Training,
TJ

Rolling Along

The last week or so has been great.
I went over to Dothan last Saturday with a couple of friends for the TriStates100. Although the heat got pretty rough at the end of the ride, we still had a great time. Good route, good roads, great rest stops and great food afterwards. I highly recommend it and I’m sure I’ll be going back next year.

I finished up painting in KJ’s room last week also, although all of her stuff is STILL in our living room. Hopefully it’ll all be somewhat back in place by the end of this week. Then it’ll be time to move on to the next room. We’re still debating which will be next…

Training has been going great lately and I managed 12 hours last week. I capped off the week with a brick Saturday and a nice short ride with breakfast afterwards Sunday morning. The brick Saturday was what I call an A.D.D brick (aerobic descending distance, not the other A.D.D). The intensity is easy to steady throughout....aerobic. And with each sport the length drops down one race distance. For this session, I started out with a half IM swim, then an Olympic bike, finishing off with a sprint distance run. I’ll probably do the longer version (IM swim, Half IM bike, Oly run) in a few weeks. These sessions let me get in a nice long aerobic workout while greatly reducing the chance of injury, specifically ITBS.
I hope to keep things rolling this week as I start to focus more on lowering the intensity of some of my training and start building my base back up during the Fall and Winter.

Huge congrats to Rural Girl for ripping up the course at Ironman Wisconsin and breaking that magical 12 hour mark. It was great following along online and seeing it all come together at the finish line. And how about Chris McDonald? Wow! Second at IM Louisville last week and then taking the win at IM Wisconsin only a week later. That’s gotta be a first.

Hope everyone has a great week.
Happy training,
TJ