Woohoo

You can skip the couple of rants below. Kind of boring but it sure felt good to write them. Blog is kind of out of order. Good week though. Lots of hard everything going on. I survived!

Bought plane tickets to Madison. Leave Saturday August 31. Fly home the Tuesday after the race.

Weekend
Saturday-long ride. Erik came with me for 20 miles. Pieced together 78 miles of valley roads. Actually found a newly painted jem of a road. Got tired of myself at mile 60. Did the run. I think I covered more ground in the last 15 than in the first 30 minutes. Even though the goal was maybe different. It took 15 minutes to get the legs functioning properly. Went to a BBQ on a new deck that Erik designed. Went to bed early.

Sunday- masters swim- got I'm 3000.
Run- Went up Stone Creek. The start to the Bangtail 38k. It switchbacks for a long time. I have ridden it but not run so wanted to see how steep it really was. Took me 1:20 to reach the top. Got caught in a thunderstorm and downpour. It was awesome!

Monday- Rode with Lawrence. Hyalite, Kelly Canyon, Jackson Creek, and back over Kelly Canyon. My legs were screaming French fries over that last climb. My back was definitely was tired today. At mile 40 or so it was uncomfortable. Started out cloudy and rainy. Ended up sunny and beautiful. Rode 76 miles. Having a hard time getting 80 out of the Gallatin valley. I think I have my eating down okay. Have a timer and take in calculated calories every 15 minutes plus supplement with a bar and gel. Have been eating those Pro bars. They are calorie packed. Even for the cost.  Water though on the bike has been more of an issue. I need to restock more often. I can really start to loose it running out of water.  On Monday  Lawrence had extra that saved me. Note to self: in race always get more water at aid stations. It is worse to run out.

Tuesday- Actually rode around for a while after work.  Have a trailer on my commuter. Makes it nice to run errands.

Julie's weekly rage-First, I registered for the Bozeman Sprint Race. It cost 80+ dollars. Registration, $6 in fees for using their registration website, and $12 for a one day USAT license. I have to win that race and get a Rudy Project prize (that is all they ever have for prizes), just so that I can sell it to make up for the price to race.  Second, right after I registered for the Bozeman sprint race, I read an update on their website. The sprint run course has been changed to 2 laps on trails at the E. Gallatin. The only thing I am going to say is that those trails aren't very wide. I'm sure it won't take you long to figure out what a cluster that is going to be. So much for a super fast run. Note: Don't get me wrong, I still want to do the race, and I can't do anything about it now anyway. I also like to complain about the bad race directors

2nd- Erik's friend came back through town.(The one who stays up all night). In some dumb move I suggested that he and his girlfriend stay a few days. On Wednesday, I was sitting at work, thinking what a dumb move that was on my part. I felt so bad. Lawrence and I took over the living room (we had to listen to those speakers to ride) and he and the girlfriend sat at the table on their computers and reading books. I think they were mad. Then after the ride, they wanted to go out for sushi. A) I am cheap and sushi is expensive and B) because of that I never eat enough. We ordered four rolls, for four of us. After that ride, I could have eaten all four. It is Friday and I think I am still in a calorie hole. By the time we were done it was 10pm. Gabe kept pushing to stop at a bar and get a round. Erik, bless his heart, convinced him that no, we had to go home, we could watch a movie. Anyway, the whole point is that I can't commit to a few days with people who aren't willing to exercise, eat a lot, and go to bed early.

Wednesday- The wind was scary, scary, scary. Sorry about that email. I was feeling super weird that day. Having a really hard time focusing. I actually wrote it at one point when the clouds outside were going crazy and decided not to send it. Somehow it got sent though. Anyway, Lawrence came over and we did the 35 minutes hard together. We warmed up for an hour and cooled down for 30 minutes. Glad he was there. That hurt pretty bad. Even though we were watching it dump outside and had the windows open we were sweating. It felt good to sweat it out. It was funny, we were trying to envision the Bozeman tri race course but got to the turn around a good  8 minutes before we should have. Ha Ha. I did skip the run that day though. Bad weather, cold and windy. After getting really hot and still not feeling 100%, I neglected it.

Thursday- Feeling super tired, very tired, but I can't sleep. Michelle was MIA so I went on a run by myself. Thought about going shorter since I wasn't feeling great, but felt okay running once I was running. Swam after work. It was fine. Nothing special. Felt better going fast than slow.

Friday swim TT- I started going kind of hard. Not 1000m TT pace, but maybe 1/2 IM pace. At 1000 I looked at my watch. It said 16:14. No f***ing way. In the Grizzly last year I killed myself to get 16:03. The total time for the 1500 was 25:15. Either I slowed on the last 500, which, I don't really think I slowed that much, or I did an extra lap. Either way, I am pretty excited about that time. Maybe I have actually been doing something right this year.