Group Bike & Run Training - June 1st

I had plenty of rest from last night, but I still procrastinated about going out for my training. In the end I thought it best, considering I am less than a month away from the actual event. I arrived on time, which was nice for a change.

My original plan was to just do the bike, but I flirted with the idea of running depending on what time it was and how my knee felt, after having run hard yesterday. We started out with Courtney poking some fun at herself about having too much to drink the night before, and then picking on Ron for shaving his legs and making her feel insecure about hers! ;)

Stu, gave us a tutorial on cornering, and had us try it out in the parking lot which was definitely good to know, because these things help avoid accidents in the real race.

We started out with Ron leading the pack and Don close behind. I kicked my gears into to match speed, but I had barely gotten a 1/4 mile out that my rear tube burst. What was worse was I realized I had no extra tube, as it had fallen out of my pouch when the bike was in the car. The other problem was the pump that I had, was fairly useless as I did not know how to make it work, and neither did Stu. Fortunately Stu did have a spare tube that was the same size. It took us about 20 mins to struggle and get the tire up in order and use Stu's gas cartridge to get enough air to get back to the car and use his pump to get my bike in order.

The good news was that my bike was in order, the bad news was I was going to have to follow Stu all the way, considering we were behind and Stu is a fast biker!

However Stu did make sure I was not falling too far behind, and I really appreciated that. I also learnt how to keep my cadence at around the 90 mark, which was something I was not doing in the past. This helped keep my breathing study, and for the most part keep up with Stu. I was not too good at optimally shifting gears, which was where I would keep falling behind, plus the fact I have to let go of the tri position to change my gears because I have a road bike.

At the end of the bike run, I was quite satisified with myself for having doing a very solid run, and felt that I had learnt a few important things today. My legs were not ready enough for the run, besides the fact I was running late to meet up with Bora and Dave.

I will try to get a run in during the week, but I really want to get plenty of rest before I do the tri in Ann Arbor this coming weekend. I have a couple of swim trainings coming up this week, so if I can do the first two parts, I should be able to put some extra will power into the running part and pull it off! :)