Monday, February 25, 2008

Wreary Weekend

I think Jonnene and I spent most of today in a daze. This past weekend really wore us out, yet it was a good couple of days, lots of things to do and some fun to be had. It basically boiled down to three things:

Saturday morning we did some long rides on the bike. She did about 44 miles and I cranked out 63, or my first 100K of the year. It took a lot out of us since we haven't been riding as much as we'd like but we knew we needed to get some long rides in and it wouldn't be pleasant all the time. Maybe most of it but not ALL of it!

After the rides, she ran some errands while I washed up and prepped my gear for the 20K time trial being held in Monroe the next morning. But first we were going to Monroe Saturday afternoon to be at a play that evening. We had to dress up since the performance was only for the patrons of the theatre...the "upper crust" of Monroe-West Monroe society, or something like that. The play was "A Streetcar Named Desire" and we were going because a racing buddy/teammate of mine was playing the male lead role of Stanley Kowalski and I had to see that! We'd also stay at his house for the night before the time trial. Well, the play was fun to see although the seats were a bit uncomfortable and not enough leg room for guys like me. Brian did a great job and his was his first time to be in a play! I thought he was excellent...of course, he's a lawyer in real life, so maybe acting's a natural thing for him! Anyway, we met up with him and his wife after the performance and stayed up until 1 am talking and catching up on things. The Wife and I dropped like rocks once we got to our room to go to bed.


After five hours of sleep, we jumped up to do the time trial over at HorseShoe Lake, a basic out-and-back 12.6 miles of pushing a bicycle as fast as you can stand it. I was greatly out of shape and it showed. I did an even 33 minutes for the distance (I did it in 30:22 just last September when I was in great shape for this "older" body) but I was pretty happy with my effort. All I have to do is get stronger and stay focused...the speed will come and the times will drop. My result put me at 6th place in the Masters 45+ and that's okay with me since it's early in the season. That's me in the picture above in the new team kits.


Jonnene (above) did the time trial, too, and her time was about three minutes slower than last year. She had to use one of my front wheels when the valve extender on her Blackwell 50mm broke as we were airing up her tires.

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