In honor of the Indy 500

I did my own brick. My first real one, if you want to be technical about it. And while I am physically wiped out in a way I haven't felt in a long while, I am emotionally on a serious endorphin high.

I started out on the Purple People Eater, and rode a little over 12 miles in an hour. Slow, yes, but not tortuously slow like last time. This time, it was comfortable (except for one murderous uphill into the wind I had not counted on, but I made it without walking the bike! yippee!!) and I felt much more at ease with the different gears. I also slowed down a bit on corners and turns, seeing as it was sprinkling and wet for much of the time I was out there. But, I hit my top speeds on the straightaway right before I got home, so I felt good that I had a little something left in the tank, and didn't kill myself. I feel like I could have gone faster, but I really wanted to just feel what it would be like to ride for an hour. Again, as with the swimming, especially since I will be on the PPE for this race, I just want to finish this time. Speed will come later (mebbe... heh!).

I parked the bike on the front porch (please, someone, anyone, come take her -- that would have given me an excuse to get a new one...sorry, I *know* I shouldn't speak of my bike like that -- I'm just begging for some bad Karma) and ran inside to get my iPod and my visor. It wasn't that I needed the visor for the sun, but rather to keep the rain out of my glasses. Then I hit the road for a 5K run. I was breathing a bit more heavily than I should have been, and it would probably serve me well to get a new battery for the HR monitor, but I didn't think of that today, and I kind of don't want to know. Again, bad, I know, but I'm kind of in this "ignorance is bliss" stage with this tri thing.

So anyhoo, I start the run, and I'm plodding along. Plod, plod, plod. And I feel like my legs are in mud and it's taking all I have to lift them for the next step. I feel like I'm flat-footing it the whole time. I feel like there is no way in the world that I can run 3 whole miles. But then I look down at my Garmin and see that I'm actually on a 9:45 pace. Wha?? Sub-10:00 AFTER a 12-mile ride? Whoa! No wonder it feels so hard -- I can't hardly sustain that on fresh legs! Wahoo! So I slowed it down a bit, although I still managed to keep a sub-10:00 pace for the whole thing. I considered slowing down and actually walking about the 2.3 mile mark, but then decided that this was it. This was my proving ground. I had no choice but to keep running. Because if I could do it today, that meant that I am fully capable of doing the distances involved. I believed it, but I had to prove it to myself. And I did.

Just had lunch and now all that's left to do today is take a nap and enjoy the rest of the day. So that's what I'm doing now. Peace out!