Flippin Sweet Dude

Did 67 Miles yesterday, I suppose it was my first metric century ride too.  It was interesting to ride into Utah County.  Erika did car support, and when we both ended up near  Timpanogos/Alpine/Lehi, we both got wicked lost, and couldn’t find each other for some time.   Each town has it’s own numbering system, and that is stupid.

I refueled at the end of the Suncrest road.  This was my first attempt at going over Suncrest, a 1,500+ foot climb back into the Salt Lake Valley.  The trip over Suncrest was by far my biggest climb I’ve ever done, and it did stop me a couple time, to get my heart rate back down to reasonable rates.   I did finally conquer the mountain.  ( I started the climb at mile 49 of my trip.  )   Riding down hill was somewhat crazy, as I’m sure I could have hit over 50+ miles an hour without pedaling at all.

After all that, I did ~ 10 miles towards home, until I hit my goal miles, and had Erika pick me up.

I also got my first injury on my bike, at least that I can remember.  After stopping for a rest, I started to pedal uphill and thought I was clipped in all the way.   Obviously I was not, and when I pushed hard on the down stroke, I slipped off the pedal and the front gear’s teeth ate my leg.

I ran across this cool blog, and thought it should be shared.

Here is one of my favorites.

Finished my first triathlon today, at the West Valley Fitness Center.  It was wicked fun, and I did much better than I thought I would.

Here is the play by play:

5:00 am – Get up, get ready for the day, nerves a mess.

6:00 am – Checkin, Get the number 39 written on my arm and leg with permanent marker. Setup up transition area, nerves still a mess. Erika’s nerves a mess too.

7:00 am – Start the swimming leg, get kicked in the face by 10 swimmers, hit with arms, legs and who know what else for 11 minutes straight.

Transition #1 – 3 minutes to get in cycle gear, nearly passed out because I was out of breath.  Funny to see a fat wet guy trying to put on a shirt.

Bike Ride – 46.5 minutes, this was the best part of the triathlon.  I passed lots of people, perhaps 20, dropped my favorite water bottle, and took the opportunity to eat.  Lots of people must not train much for the bike part, since many of them had bad technique.

Transition #2 – 2 minutes to get out of cycle gear and into running gear.

Run – 30 minutes, one of my best run times.  ( PR is 29.09 for the 5k )

Total time was 1 hour 32.5 minutes, 7.5 minutes faster than my goal time.  

( Amendment : Official Time is 1:31:58.8 )

Went back and found my water bottle.  ( Thanks to who ever set it on the side of the road. )

This was a really fun event, and I had a great time.  Too bad the swim section sucks, perhaps next time it will go better.  This has got to be one of my favorite accomplishments ever.  It is funny how I get so nervous and worry about it so much, but when it is all over, I want to do better and go back for more.

It was great to have Erika and the boys there cheering my on.  They really helped get everything set up, and carry all my junk.  I was so happy to see them when I got to the finish line.

Wells Fargo, the holder of our note for our home, has horrible service. Here is my opinion at the top of the year.  Either way, for the past several days, we have been getting a phone call to sell us more insurance on our mortgage, and even a 2nd mortgage.  Erika got feed up with the calls today, asked for the 10th time to stop calling, and really expressed her feeling today at lunch time.  Sure enough at 6 pm tonight, guess who called?  I’m sure that they don’t fall under the do-not-call rules, since we unfortunately are doing business with them, however if they wanted to give meaningful and considerate service, they may want to rethink their obnoxious call center sales approach.

Family went to Lagoon all day Thursday.  First time for the boys, and at least 14 years for me.

Erika love to ride the roller coasters, and she had a great time taking us to all the rides.  The boys liked the trip, and hope we go back every year.  Here is a pic of them on their favorite ride, the scrambler.

Boys have been catching dragon flies each night.  They fly around like crazy at dusk, eating mosquitoes.  They fly so high, that the boys rarely get a chance to catch one, so we taped the bug nets to some long sticks.  Within 3 minutes they had caught and released 3 dragon flies.

Stuff that happened this week,  in no particular order:

1.  Erika and I went on a great 37 mile ride together, and got to spend some time together.

2.  I ate several bugs while riding and running, only one bit me back, right on the tongue.

3.  Decided to pick up all the change I saw on the road, ended up with $ 2.47 for the week.

4.  Ran along side a baby deer, for about 1/2 mile.

5.  Rode a 17 mile ride with Nathan, his longest ride so far.

6.  Finished my first bike race, and didn’t get last place.

7.  Swam my fastest 400 meters yet, and also did a 1,200 meter swim the next morning.

8.  Found out that I do have asthma, and taking a hit off an inhaler, it makes me feel like I can actually breath. Note to those living within 4 miles of my house:  You will not be able to hear me breath while running anymore.

9.   Wedding ring can now fall off my hand without any effort.  I must go get it resized.

10.  Fell asleep while watching ‘Despicable Me’, only saw the last 5 minutes of the movie.

11.  I’ve concluded that Google Chrome is the best web browser.

12.  Got 20% senior citizen discount on my prescription sunglasses, only because I said I was not happy with the price.  Then when I went to pick them up, they found they over charged me, and gave me back some money.

13.  Blew out my bike’s front tire.

14.  One 100 degree day, I dropped my water bottle 4 miles into my ride, it got hit by a car, so I lost all my water.   I got a better insulated bottle, and the local bike shop through in 2 more water bottles for free.

15.  Wrote this blog post.