Abs Hurt

I did the J&A's core workout on Monday. I'm sore now and it hurts to sneeze. My lats are pretty sore as well. So sore that it was an interesting swim on Tuesday morning. I went to a new pool, Dick Nichols, that is near my house actually. It isn't as crowded as Stacy, it is cleaner than Stacy, and it's cooler that Stacy. And it's 25yds so I'm quite happy with it and I'll be swimming there from now on. Problem is that lap swimming is open only from 6:30-7:30am so if I want to get an hour swim in, I have to be there right at 6:30.

I did the Tuesday Nighter last night. I was told to meet at Pure Austin at 5pm and there would be a group riding out from there. I showed up and the only person that I recognized was Amy Marsh, Brandon's wife. Well, she didn't know anyone else and it was her first time there as well so we rode out there together with the group. She also had some cash and bought me Gatorade because I forgot my wallet at work. It was over 100 degrees when we left so it was going to be hot!

We rode out there fairly easily and I got better at riding in a group. I don't have problems taking turns behind someone, but I'm a little sketchy on turning next to someone. I practiced these skills out there. Once we got there, I recognized Scott and maybe one or two others. This is definitely a roadie race because there were few triathletes there. The A's left and then the B's waited about 5 minutes. Then, I was off.

The first half lap was kind of slow. About 3 miles, the pace picked up a bit and at one point there were some guys that tried to pull off the front. They were separating from the pack and I didn't want to get dropped so I powered through and caught on to the back of that pack. We were absolutely flying and I was loving it. It was scary as hell but it's what I expected. Taking some of the corners were pretty scary though and it was good that I was getting used to it. I was sticking with the main back pretty well, but it was tough because they were moving fast. I'm just not used to that type of racing, but I'm pretty good in time trial efforts. I tried to rest whenever I could. There was one right turn that I didn't know about and there was a hill after that as well and I was totally in the wrong gear. I had to work my ass off to catch up with the rest of the group.

I kept up with the lead pack for the 1st lap. Amy got dropped at the right turn with the following up hill, but I was able to recover. On the first lap, I climbed up the hill pretty strongly. Well, that was my downfall. As I was cresting the hill, there was some random guys attacking and I tried to keep up by barrelling down that hill. This didn't allow me a chance to rest at all. After another right turn and some rollers, I quickly dropped off the back of the pack while I was fighting so hard to stay on, but I just couldn't. My race was done, but I was still going to push. I kept pedaling and I had the pack in sight for awhile. At some point, I passed two other cyclists and we ended up working together for the rest of the lap. Each of us would take about 1-2 minute pulls in front. I got us up 1 big hill and I switched off. That was fun as well because I was learning when I needed to pedal harder to stay on someones wheel when I dropped back. It also felt like I had slightly more energy than the other guys because I would pick up the pace slightly when it was my turn to pull. I kept my cadence higher in the 95+ range as well. I completed the 2nd lap and I was done. I met up with Amy again and we rode back to Pure Austin.

Overall, I did about 40 miles on Tuesday. It was freaking hot and I had 4 bottles of fluid and I still felt horribly dehydrated. It was fun though and it was very tough on my cardio system. I needed something like that and I'll be back at some point soon.

My weight this morning was 181 which is down from 184 from yesterday. My new car is awesome and I still have to write up my Tejas Triathlon race report. BTW, I got 6th in my age group and once again I had a great run for me.