A successful biathlon
As you may know, this blog originated as an attempt to chronicle Peter & Jeff's triathlon preparation. Well, the triathlon was supposed to happen this weekend in Columbia, Missouri, but because of torrential downpours on the morning of the race, the organizers had to cut out the all-important biking portion of the event (a hilly 17.5 mile course)! So, our first triathlon turned into a biathlon/slogathon in extremely sodden conditions. It was fun though, and Jeff and I both did better than we expected turning in respectable, but not competitive, times in the swimming and running portions of the event. Next time, we'll hope for better weather and that the number of events in the event will live up to the number of events in the name!
Greetings, gentle readers of the "triathlon blog." I hope that you have enjoyed our forays into the world of interviewing, to which we shall presently return. I almost returned there yesterday evening when "Tuesday night fun night" suddenly appeared at our door, complete with some unsuspecting interview victims, but alas, there was too little time for an interesting interview. On a triathlon note, the day approaches in less than two weeks! The weather has turned beautiful, the pace of school has turned phrenetic, and for some odd reason I've agreed to go to Edwardsville, Illinois this evening to translate for a Mexican pastor who is meeting with a mission team that will be spending time in the DF (Distrito Federal - Mexico City) this summer. Go figure.
Only a moment here to post, but here are Some Facts That Might Interest You:
Fact 1: I have recently outstripped "all about angie" in terms of recent posts.
Fact 2: If you are in a PCA church, your pastor isn't actually a member of your church, he's a member of your presbytery.
Fact 3: Sephardic Jews have some really weird nursery rhymes, for example:
Let's go down to the square to buy buttons
there's an old dame there with three colors
one for me
and one for you
and one for the king's daughter
who is frying doughnuts
I asked her for one
she offered me three
I took four
she gave me a plateful
and I gave one to the dog
to ring the bell for me
and I gave one to the cat
to purr for me
and I gave one to the rooster
to fly with my on high
he took me behind a door
where I found a dead lamb.
Fact 5: I'm hungry and it's time to go!
Did an "indoor tri simulation" a couple of times last week - this week I'll do some sims where the running and biking are actually outside!
May 3 or 4 will be the day for our triathlon. Yup, that's not too far away.
OK, the last post to this blog was A LONG LONG LONG TIME AGO. Jeff has been good about getting to the YMCA, but not as much as last month, and Pete of course has high hopes, but has been getting there even less - last week brought only about 1000 meters in the pool and a couple of miles on the treadmill, although there were a couple of nice bike rides the week before. The reason for some of our difficulty (well, maybe not really) - SNOW! And tons of it. It snows all the time here in St. Louis, apparently, including an unexpected deluge yesterday, which called us away from all Friday night activities to the Covenant Seminary "ball field" for some good snowball fighting, capture the flagging, ultimate frisbeeing. Unfortunately, after an ostensibly great touchdown pass to put my team up by a couple of points, I threw the frisbee over a the fence along the sidelines of the field on the ensuing "kickoff", and we had to call the game because we were having trouble finding the frisbee. :) So, hopefully we'll have less snow and more YMCA and good enough weather to take out our spiffy bikes! And hopefully when we do take out our bikes, Jeff won't have another flat tire (he's 2 for 3 so far - not a good "batting average" for getting flat tires).
Well, having recently learned of a wider readership, I am encouraged to report again. Of course, there's not really a lot to report. Last week was a consistent week, with 5 workouts. It was good to get back to my "home Y." I allowed my Heart Rate Monitor another opportunity to earn a permenant place in the gym bag. I'm still not sold on it. So far all it does is confirm that I'm not in as good of shape as I would like. Thank you, Heart Rate Monitor.
Today, however, was a beautiful day here, 65 degrees or so. So roommate Mark and I went mountain biking for a bit, then played two hours of Ultimate Frisbee with a bunch of other students from the seminary. It was great, I love Ultimate, and we had a fairly competitive game. So my legs are pretty wiped, and I'm wondering whether tomorrows workout will happen or not.
Hello, blog readers (pete). Pete's desription of my bike was not quite up to par, so I will fill in the details. It is a cannondale R600 with a CAAD 3 frame, and yes it has a 105 rear derailluere. I am indeed more of a biker than anything else, although road biking is new to me, i've been a mountain biker for many years. I've only started swimming a couple months ago, but i'm really enjoying it. that doesn't mean i'm good at it. and running, well, i guess i'm gonna have to do that to finish the tri. but i am really looking forward to the tri and the tri training. this morning i went to the Y for some swimming. pete was too busy to go, hmmm, pete, pete, pete. coldness continues, so it will be indoor workouts for a while.
I have just found out that pete is the "captain" of this web blog. ooooh. oh captain my captain. we'll soon see who is the captain of the tri!
The Lazy & The Slacker
And by that I mean me and Jeff of course. I'm the lazy, because I didn't work out today. He's the slacker because he is supposed to post to this blog but isn't doing it! Do you feel chastized, Jefe? :)
No Ride Today (Saturday)
Instead, several of us (Daniel, Mark, Pop, and I) moved Grandma-Tex's stuff into her new room (#101) at Appletree Court. It was actually a better day than Friday for a bike ride, with the sun coming out and warming things up a bit, but other things were on the agenda - like trying to get Movable Type installed on our webserver and visiting with Angie's sister Carrie and brother-in-law John. Amazing how sick everybody is getting all at once - Angie's father was recently diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, and John's father has an advanced form of cancer. All men indeed are like grass...
Today's Ride.
Today I rode over to Mark's place (14 mile round trip) in 1:06. Pretty slow, but it was cold and I'm just getting back into riding consistent milage on a road bike. I must have looked kind of funny wearing my biking shorts with leg extensions, Oxford sweatshirt, and long wool scarf flapping behind me! The highlight of today's trip was the extra power supplied by using biking shoes and clipless pedals.
Yesterday, David and I went about 8 miles on mountain bikes. The highlight of that trip, besides going with David, was "bird herding." There were hundreds of birds in a field that we always cross, and if you rode at them they would all ascend in a giant crowd into the air. If you dodged to the right, the cloud would go left; if you dodged to the left, the cloud would dart right. Very fun.
Our Cool Bikes.
At the end of the day, Jeff and I are really bikers more than anything else, which is why over the last several months both of us have given in and gotten road bikes. Jeff now rides a Cannondale (not sure on the model of the frame) with all Tiagra components (that's second up from the bottom of the Shimano line - he may have 105, the next level up, in the rear derailleur). I now ride a 2003 Specialized Allez Sport (black with red trim, aluminum frame, carbon seat post and fork) with Tiagra components and a 105 rear derailleur. Maybe we'll put a picture up later on.
Introduction.
Last year, motivated by the successful completion of the "hotter 'n hell" one hundred mile bike ride and by a scholarship to the local YMCA, I decided that my next exercise goal would be a triathlon. Having convinced my friend (and now roommate) that this would be a noble goal, we have begun to train for a sprint triathlon - that's a 400-500 meter swim (1/4 mile), a 9-15 mile bike ride, and a 5K run (3.1 miles). Each of these is easily achievable on its own, but together they should be a good challenge and a test to see whether we want to try to move up to the next level (olympic, half-ironman, or ironman). As we start our training in earnest, we are adequate swimmers (still getting smoked by those "masters" level swimmers but able to do a 1/4 mile fairly easily), average bikers (both mountain and road), and less than adequate runners (wheeze, wheeze). Hopefully by the middle of March we'll be up for completing this little sprint triathlon and ready to try to complete a bigger one!