Chugging Along

It's Wednesday...wah, wah, wah, something about a hump day, blah.  I'm just here sitting in my swivel chair.  It looks so nice outside today and I'm stuck indoors.  Let's see if I can be slightly entertaining for a moment, for all of our sakes.

We were a bit busy this past weekend.  On Saturday morning we had a garage sale and it was definitely interesting.  I can say that I've probably only ever been a part of two garage sales, if that.  My memory is definitely not dependable so I can't remember them so much, but they are draining.  Between being outside in the heat and humidity for 5 hours, the mosquitos and then price haggling, it left me completely exhausted.  Obviously I had to entertain myself:

$1 shirt. Model not for sale.

Who doesn't try on some random shirt tossed in your mom's box before trying to sell it?  No?  Alrighty then, moving on.  After we collected our meager $42.00 we decided to vegetate the rest of the afternoon.  All life was sucked out of us, so we moved our bike ride to Sunday morning.  We went to sleep fairly early and woke up at 6:30 am.  I felt good and ready to go but it all changed as soon as we exited our complex.  Two minutes in and I yell to Michelle that my legs are tighter than ever and I'm exhausted.  At first I thought it was because we started on the harder part of the route, but seriously, it's not that hard.  I sucked down a GU 10 mintues into the ride and hoped that would kick in sooner than later.  We pushed through and continued to finish 10 miles in 46 minutes.  I don't know what the issue was but my feet were going numb as were some of my fingers.  It was weird.

We were so letdown by our performance that we were ready to go for a run and make up for the crappy bike ride.  However, we forgot we had a lunch to go to so we got ready and immediately felt better over some beer and flatbread pizza.  Ha!  Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes there's beer.  A little Innis & Gunn Oak Aged beer never hurt anyone.

In the meantime, let me impress you with my photo skills and cheesy bike photo shoot:

Sunset trumps the bike.

Yes, I've turned into that person that stages her bike for a little camera action.  Who am I!?  You don't have to answer that.

Pioneer to the Fall(s)

Happy Tuesday.  Grrrr.  As the rest of the 9-to-5ers of the world, I wish the weekends were longer.  Anyway, I have a little story to tell you guys, so grab your coffee and stare blankly into your computer screens.

When we bought the bikes, as we were getting fit, our friendly LBS rep told us that we should buy clipless pedals and shoes.  We knew what he was talking about but also knew it wasn't something we wanted to purchase and use right from the get go.  We wanted to get to know our bikes, and make sure the fit was right, etc, etc.  But before I continue... Can we talk about the name of this element of cycling?  Clipless pedals seems to be quite the opposite of what it achieves, because you end up clipping to them.  As in, your feet and the pedals become one in holy matrimony.  As is the norm in current society unions, this marriage of foot clipped onto a pedal can be quite rocky.  And by rocky I mean, you will fall on your butt while your feet are stuck in these pedals.  You'll fall simply because this is abnormal.  Since we're kids, we've only ever used regular unclippable (is that a word) pedals.  Ultimately, there was a mental tug-o-war over trying to feel any sense of comfort when you first try this out on the road, secluded or not.  In our case, I thought I was more of a nervous wreck than Michelle.  Lo and behold, she was the first to fall on the street...with cars around. Dun-dun-dun.

We had bought the pedals maybe 2 months after riding the bikes and the decision was heavily persuaded because the bike store we frequent (here's my shout out to biketech.com) were having an anniversary sale.  There shoes were 50% off...hello!  Now you're talking my language.  Shoes and sale are magnets to my wallet so of course we went.  We bought our shoes:

Mine are on the left.  Hello non-sexy shoes.

And the Look Keo Classic Pedals:

You bringing me down Keo!

The shop told us to come back during the week to get on the trainer and practice the clips.  Ummm, there was no way that was going to happen.  We wanted to try it that same day, so we practiced by holding onto the counter in the kitchen.  Clip in, and clip out, and pedal backwards because we don't have a trainer.  Ta-da!  After a couple of minutes, we were ready to hit the lake path.  And by ready, I mean we have no patience.  I tried to stop and get off the bike and jammed the pedal to my calf while my leg slipped because there is no traction on these shoes.  But I was so happy I didn't fall, that I'll take a pedal to the calf any day.  The very first time we tried riding on the streets with these pedals, I literally made a u-turn because I thought I was going to die.  Literally.  There was too many cars out on the street, that I did the whole 'jam a pedal to my leg' again while trying to stop before slamming into a car.

Fast forward to last weekend.  We try our hardest to get up early, around 6:30am to hit the streets on the weekends.  They're pretty empty at that time and being the early worm has managed to help us grow some comfort with this new pedal setup.  However, my dear Michelle tipped over last weekend.  She had the dreaded fall that all the bike guys told us would happen.  We were riding down a pretty long road near tomato fields and there are a couple nooks that are dead ends.  She was behind me and screamed out to stop up ahead in the dead end to have a drink of water.  So I had to turn slighly left and straighten out to place my unclipped right foot on the right curb.  Michelle has decided she's more comfortable unclipping with her left foot, but she was already leaning into the left curve and that's when it happened.  Hello, big bruise on the buttock.  Seriously, her butt broke her fall and all she had was a little bruising on her left wrist and left ankle.  Thankfully, the tip over happened near one of these nooks.  There were cars at the stop sign that were staring a bit, but they went along their merry way.  I'm not going to embarrass her with photo evidence (which I couldn't photograph anyway because I was too busy being worried) but this is my rendition of Michelle's fall:

I've fallen and can't get up, because these damn shoes have no traction.

By the way, I'm ashamed to admit that I graduated with an art degree.  Don't judge me.  Do I have any Interpol fans in the hizzouse?  No?  Do yourselves a favor and give them a whirl because they are awesome.  Ok, buh-bye.

Shame, shame, shame

Shame on me.  I feel like I've stepped into a confessional, hidden under a veil, about to tell my deepest and darkest sins.  'Hello readers, it has been 45 days since my last post.'  Cue the catholic guilt, recite the serenity prayer and click your road bike shoes 3 times.  Are we reconciled?  I sure hope you guys forgive me because I am back and better than ever.  Well, let's just say I'm back and the jury will decide later on whether I'm better at this whole blogging biznazz.

Where do I even start...  The last time you heard from me, I was ready to go on vacation and had marked July 8th as our start date to the 12 week program.  How was vacation?  Vacation was good and restful.  We didn't work out as much as we had intended but we did try.  I got sick with allergies and a sinus cold.  I spend a good part of my days with my good buddy Neti Pot.

Exhibit A - good thing we captured this angle.

Aside from spending time in front of a sink, we also spent most of it in the pool.

Exhibit B - my sister hiding in the shadow.

All in all, we loved spending it with family and we can never get enough of our nieces.  We drove there and back and it kicked our butt.  It's a 21 hour drive one way but it was the only way we could take our dogs with us.  Thankfully we decided to come back a day earlier so we could rest one full day before we got back to the grind and start our triathlon regimen.

We just finished our 4th week of the 12 week program and its been tough.  First of all, Michelle was due to start a new job when we came back from Arkansas, and the hospital is located about 1 hour away from where we live.  We definitely didn't grasp 2 things: that she was going to be working full time now and that 2 hours out of her day were going to be spent in traffic.  This completely affected how smoothly we thought our training program was going to go.  It isn't until this 4th week that we have a good sense on how to work out on our own and together.  We are obviously undertaking this triathlon together and I was so bummed with the thought that we were going to have to train separately, but we've managed to make it work.  How so?  On the days that there are two workouts, I will do the optional workout in the morning by myself (I slither into work at 11:30ish am).  Then at 7:45 pm we can do the main workout together before dinner.  As much as I'd like her to do the optional workout before I get home, I'm trying not to put too much pressure because she has all the right to unwind after work.  When it's a one workout day, it's easy and we do it at night or we decide ahead of time that we'll do it separately.  And the weekends are the easiest in terms of time, but not so much when it comes to motivation.  LOL!

We're trying our 'best' and we know that we can definitely step it up a notch.  I'm not going to lie, I was stressed from Day 1.  I wanted to be perfect and do all the workout sessions but I found that we weren't managing our time well and it frustrated me.  We literally did this for 2 straight weeks like robots:  wake up, eat, go to work, workout, eat, bathe and sleep.  This is supposed to be fun, so I had to be open to perspective and shift my thinking.  Now that our feet are more than wet, we are having fun and have our schedules down so hopefully it's smooth sailing from here on out.

Exhibit C - having fun.

Mark your calendars people, we signed up for the first triathlon (as a relay) on September 29th.  It is the Publix Escape to Miami Triathlon and we are pumped.  Nervous but pumped.  Have a fantastic weekend and you'll hear from me next week, I promise.  Ride on!