Swim/Bike Day

I supposed the good news is, today I swam 2.4 miles and I was fine. The bad news was, the race I signed up for was only supposed to be 2 miles long. Boulder Aquatic Masters puts on 3 Bare Bones swim races over the summer, I joined them for the last one. It's a casual, not chip timed swim where I saw not only half the triathlon community but people like Olympian Matty Reed. Yes, Boulder Casual.

I was anticipating the swim to take me 1 hour to 1:10, as most my 1500 meter swim times this year have been slightly under 30 minutes. It was a 2 lap course and we didn't get out of the water so I didn't look at my watch in between laps. Being a mile course with only 9 buoys, it was pretty spread out. And the swim groups spread out quickly so that while I could feel someone on my feet, there was no one in front of me. The first lap, I wasn't sure where I was going half the time. So when I got out of the water and saw 1:25 on my watch, I was confused. Did I accidentally hit the lap button and it really said 1 minute 25 seconds? How could I possibly swim 2 miles in that long a time? But after much discussion with other swimmers, it was acknowledged that the course was a bit longer than 2 miles. Jay had swam the Horsetooth 2.4 mile swim the week before in 1:14, today he swam 1:17. So in fact, the course may have even have been 2.5 miles.

My goal time for the Ironman is between 1:15 and 1:25. I think I'll swim faster when I'm clumped around a bunch of swimmers - it's easier to pace and draft when there are people around you. But if it's so crowded I can't get a clean stroke in, I may be a bit slower. At any rate, the distance is not a problem, the extra 2300 people doing the course will be the challenge.

After the swim, a group of us set out on a ride. We initially started with a group of 6, and biked to hwy 52 and I-25. At that point 3 peeled off for a measly 2 hour ride while Al, Jay and I continued east. Jay only wanted to go as far as I-76 so Al and I continued on another 10 miles by ourselves. We turned around at 45 miles, which was exactly in the middle on nowhere:



Other points of interest:

- Somewhere around mile 30 while riding about 20 mph, Al was riding behind me and tagged my back wheel with her front. As usually happens, I stayed up while she went down. Miraculously, she just had some scrapes on her shoulder and a bruise on her knee. Her bike was fine, she was fine. And she still rode 70 more miles.

- I think I drank too much Mexican Coke the second time at I-25. I like having a soda near the end of the ride and I really like finding ones that have sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. And while it tasted good, I had a gut ache on the short run I attempted later.

- It was hot today. Somewhere around 90 and I was drinking way more than I usually did but was not having to pee. There's also not a lot of shade in Eastern Colorado.

- I did not have a lot of pep on this ride. I was fine on the way out, but the way back was more uphill and sometimes into the wind and while my legs were not sore, they had no go.