Saturday morning Jonnene and I went out to Cypress Lake to meet up with a bunch of the other local triathletes to go over the course for the River Cities Triathlon coming up on August 2nd. I only planned to ride while she would do a bit of all three events. She spent about 15 minutes max in the water and that was that...one of the other girls said now she remembers why she only swims in Cypress once a year! The water there isn't the greatest in the world yet it is Bossier City's backup water source (let's hope the Red River never runs dry!). Then we went out together to scope out the bike course which is 18.4 miles in length and now has a new bridge on the back side as well as a new section of road being built near the spillway that will shorten the course by 1/10th of a mile. It won't interfere with the triathlon but it'll make for a straighter stretch there next year. There are new sections of asphalt inside the park and at the entrance so the triathletes will love cruising down those sections.
I put in another lap after making a pit stop inside the park. I planned to do a fast up-tempo ride over the course so Jonnene, Daniel, Tony, and a few other guys headed out with me to get that extra lap in. I took off at mile three, keeping the pace at a steady 25-26 mph and soon saw that only Tony was staying with me. It was good to have the company. I charged up the hills trying to keep the pace up and he followed, telling me that I was killing him! I doubted that...Tony is a pretty strong guy...but maybe he wasn't expecting me to take the hills that aggressively and he was just happy to hang on. By the time we got back to the park both of us were sweating heavily. I would end up losing about 4 pounds in water weight...and I was drinking! Nearly emptied both of my bottles! But that's the way it is in hot, humid Louisiana among the pine trees.
Saturday afternoon I stayed around the house doing some small things that needed doing while Jonnene went out to get her hair done, get Sophie (the dog) cleaned, and doing some grocery shopping. Later that night we watched "Taken", a movie we rented starring Liam Neeson and it was an action flick we quite enjoyed. Ate take-out Chinese food, too, from a place nearby that we hadn't tried yet. Yessir, I loves my General Tso's chicken!
Today was more of a work day than a rest day. I spent most of the morning clearing out this semi-circular garden spot next to the house in the back patio. I pulled up all the bushes and wild grass there, shoveled out half the dirt and redistributed it on the back yard where I had pulled up about 72 concrete pavers (that was fun...). We're going to make that spot more of a rock garden, putting in gray river stone with three of the pavers. It'll look a lot better and be a lot less upkeep...I hope. Someday we want to pull up all the brick in the patio and replace it with molded concrete, along with other things we'd like to do back there.
While Jonnene was doing house stuff (things us fellers don't know nuttin' about), I got started with a new setup for putting our bikes in the back of her Rav4. The idea was Jonnene's but I put myself to work on the project, cutting out a huge chuck of outdoor carpeting that fit in the back of the car along with a board that would hold the front forks of our bikes. It'd keep the car clean and keep our bike stuff more organized. So far it looks pretty good...still needs some tweaking but it's going to work out well. Then the two of us went shopping, getting some small shelves that would help move her books from the linen closet to the office closet. We're slowly getting the house the way we want it.
Today's Tour de France stage was anti-climatic. I was expecting lots of fireworks today as the tour was going to tackle the Col du Tourmalet (a 6,900 foot mountain that can break your legs like twigs) but the huge climb didn't change anything in the overall standings, and, except for some exciting downhill-at-60 mph footage, nothing really happened. Armstrong and Contador didn't challenge the current yellow jersey holder (who'll probably keep it the rest of this week, but WILL lose it). I guess they're going to make their serious moves when the peloton goes into the Alps starting this Friday. Monday's a rest day so no Tour TV for me! Sob!
No comments:
Post a Comment