Tuesday, October 12, 2010

No training weekend...

Saturday, Kona: I tuned in early on Saturday morning and heard that the weather was looking favorable and that the bike conditions were going to much less windy than was typical. Then Genine got back from her class and we met up with Todd for breakfast. I don’t see him otherwise because I’m still not running. He on the other hand set a PR last weekend taking 2nd at the Duke Island Park run. Of course during breakfast we were talking about the Kona race quite a bit. Todd eventually said ok we need a bet on this race. What place is Chrissy going to be overall? I said because of the lack of wind on the bike course, the guys would have faster races than normal (can’t say if that’s true or not, that’s just what I was thinking) So I said more guys would beat her this year and went with 28th. Genine had her slightly better than last year by a spot or two. Todd had her at 17th. Obviously, it was disappointing when she dropped out of the race. It was still a very fun race to watch. Still nowhere near enough cameras out there to get the coverage I’d love to have but I realize that type of coverage is likely never going to happen because of the cost. It would be nice to have the GPS live tracking of everyone. That is something I would pay for if it worked perfectly.


Sunday: I went to the Hunterdon Half Iron race on Sunday. 8AM start it was 36 degrees out but it was going to warm up to be a beautiful fall day. The bike start would be awfully cold tho’. I was thinking to myself that I would probably have brought a couple towels to try and dry myself off pretty good before heading out of the bike course. A long T1 but it might be worth it no? Of course I wasn’t racing anyhow. Nor did I have my camera with me. Instead I had my crappy hybrid bike and my road bike on the top of the car and a co-worker and I had already been out trying to record bike sounds for the last 2 hours. It was a tough finding a place without crickets or cars was tough but actually the birds were the biggest problem at dawn. After we finished up with that we set ourselves up on the bike course to capture the bikes going by. When we first set up it was really looking like we were going to get a bunch of good recordings because there was so little traffic. Unfortunately once the bikes started rolling by, so did the cars. It was almost comical if no bikes were in sight, there were no cars, then as the bikes approached so would the traffic. I’ll be curious to find out how much of the morning’s recordings were useful.


I also spent time working on upgrades to our bike trainer area. I now have a fan hung from the ceiling just above the TV and between the speakers. Once I get all the audio hooked up to the mixer (yes there is a mixer) the only thing I can think of adding is a flat screen TV (we have a 20” sony). That way we could rig up our laptop to the screen. I could probably mount the trackball between my areobars… (not going to happen)

I also reclaimed the weight bench. It had been home to our wetsuits and various boxes of race gear all summer long. It is now clear of all that. I no longer can use the excuse that I don’t have time to get to the weight room at the Y. Of course I don’t have everything the Y has but this will be a good start.

Perhaps the most important thing being worked on this weekend was food preparation. During the week, I don’t have much time to spend preparing food. If I can’t have it on the table in 30-40 minutes it’s not going to happen. So the good stuff that takes a couple hours to put together has to happen during the weekend and then get it into the freezer. The scale is showing me numbers that suggest that the Clydesdale division could be a possibility for me next year if I don’t change something. So I’m planning on cooking and I’m hoping to find some new things that are really good. I’m going to change the format of the blog and create a recipe page or I might just create a separate blog for the food. I’m really hoping to find a good recipe for Wasabi Crusted Ahi Tuna. This weekend I made split pea soup and a black bean & sweet potato dish. Those will likely be the first two recipes to be posted. Feel free to send me your favorite healthy recipes to try.

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