A relaxing weekend

This weekend I decided to lie low a bit.  The last few weekends (ok..more than a few) have been so jam packed that I barely had time to breath.  With the next few weekends returning to the same (race, family in town, 4th of July, race again, etc..), I took the opportunity to really do much of nothing.  I felt bad for the various friends I turned down to do things, but sometimes ya just need time to do nothing.

Saturday: Ran 10K around the mall.  I did see The Lazy Triathlete on my run back to Gravely Park.  Then I took a few hour nap.  Then I swam 3,000 yards.  Following which… I did nothing for the remainder of the day.

Well, actually, I did finally plant my herbs in the pots on my deck.  And I made some more Sorbet from the remainder of the Strawberries. But otherwise, yes – nothing.

(It looks dinky now, but a few months from now it will look like a small jungle – I promise.  And…my deck is only 36” deep, so…not much room.)

Sunday:  Back up in the mountains again.  I biked a fair distance…84 or so miles.  And then I topped off the tank with a 5K brick run afterwards.   It was my first day with the new race wheels.  I took them up to get used to them and practice descending with them.

I had some issues for the first 24 miles where they felt incredibly unstable.  Dangerously so.  I had listened to Bonzai (my local tri shop) who had said to use a PSI of 120 on them.  I thought that was odd so asked them if they were absolutely sure – and they seemed sure.

Well, after the first descent it was clear that something was amiss.  A quick check of the actual tire (tubular), revealed that it says 170 PSI (why I didn’t look at the tire…or listen to my coach…earlier is beyond me).  At a little rest stop I noticed a SAG vehicle for some other random folks, and asked if I could borrow their pump instead of burning CO2 cartridges.  After going to 170PSI – life was beautiful again.

The winds were a bit rough though along the ridges and edges, keeping most of my descents to only about 30MPH due to stability issues with the strong gusts.  At any rate – here’s the wheels.  I got HED3 Carbon wheels.  I took this photo at the turnaround point at “Skyland” – also the highest point along Skyline drive.

(Yes…I realize that by West Coast standards 3,680’ qualifies as a small ant hill…but…it’s all I’ve got to work with – I make the best of it.)

I did see a deer with a baby deer.  See below for the obligatory fuzzy photo.

Otherwise, it was a nice day up there, just puffy clouds against the blue sky.  If the wind wasn’t there, it would have been perfect.

(Yes…there are many hills on Skyline.  Up..down…up…down…up…down)

Oh, one last note.  I did actually crash today – first time ever.  More of a tumble really. I was only going 6MPH ascending.  Not sure exactly what happened but next thing I knew I was upside down in the grass with the bike on top of me.  I’m just fine and dandy, and the bike never touched the ground – so it’s all fine too.  I think I just clipped the grasses edge while I was clipping back in after fixing a dropped chain.  Here’s the offending grass spot.  (So yes, that does qualify as a minor fail, at least compared to the past few days)

Ok…back to doing nothing for the rest of the night.

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