Tuesday, June 8, 2010

The Final Week!

The signs are up all around town announcing the Triathlon route for Sunday. Aghhhh! I can't believe it's already here! Saturday was my last hard core workout. I did another 30/30/30 brick.
Big shock, I know, but the lap lanes at 6:00 on a Saturday morning were packed... so another woman who was waiting decided to thumb her nose at the new "no swimming outside without a lifeguard present" rule and went out there... I followed. There were actually a few others already in the lanes out there who had also thumbed their noses at the new rule, so I was relegated to the Yard length lap pool instead of the Meter Length Lap lanes. My math and deductive reasoning skills are not exactly sharp to begin with, but at six in the morning they are non existent. I thought that a meter is double a yard's distance, so I swam forteen hundred yards. I'm swimming and a half hour is about to pass and I'm thinking to myself "How can I be this slow? I usually swim a 750 in like fifteen minutes..." Long after my brick was over (actually while standing in line waiting for assistance at the Apple store) I decided to google "Yard to Meter conversion" and found out I had actually gone much much further than necessary.
1000 meters = 914 meters so they are very very close to eachother. I could have swam 800 yards and been essentially at race day length.

The rest of my brick went off without a hitch. I felt great!

As I had previously discussed, my computer tanked. I have a laptop (which I am posting on now) but my actual desktop computer (which contains a million music files, thousands of pictures and all FOUR (yes four) of my Manuscripts..only two of which were actually backed up.... so I was in full fledged panic mode.

Thankfully, the lovely people at the Apple Store informed me that my hard drive was not the issue and that they would be able to recover everything off the hard drive and migrate it over to my new computer (YAY!- Huge sigh of relief)

So, because of the expense of the new computer.... no Tiffany earrings for me :( Maybe for my birthday, but the husband's words sounded something like this "What .... are we on a "how fast can we drain our savings account" kick"

And.. he IS right- I mean, I HAVE spent a lot of money between, the new bike, all the supplies for the Triathlon, outfits, helmets, gloves etc.... now the new computer... I know it isn't SENSIBLE to want $500 earrings.. but they are soooooo pretty!

I have a new bike seat now. The people at Performance Cycle were great. I went in there Saturday after the Apple store and explained to them that my bike and seat were fairly new, and I didn't even have to say anything else, and they replaced it. They didn't have the seat I was using in stock :( but they gave me something "similar" to what I had... which is not similar at all except in look I guess, because it is rock hard and makes my butt ache. I hope I can get used to it before Sunday (all while still tapering! ) If not, it will be thirty minutes to an hour of teeth gritting.

I'm non descript in how Im feeling these days. I migrate between feelings of calm, feelings of guarded self confidence, and then chasms of pure unadulterated white hot panic. Thankfully, the panic moments are a bit further apart then they used to be... but they are still there. Hopefully that panic can be converted come race day to some really great adrenaline.

The forecast for Sunday varies (depending on who is giving the forecast) between Thunderstorms.... Muggy thick humid weather in the high 90's, and just regular old 90 degree weather (and not so humid) so either I'm going to be roasting... soaking... or soaking and roasting. That's how I spell good times!


I wanted to take a brief soapbox moment to discuss the importance of specialty shops (like Performance Cycle) they are so much better versed than the big box stores (like a Dicks or a Sports Authority). I went to a New Balance store on Friday (I was killing time waiting to meet my husband at the movie theater) and decided to check it out ( I needed no lace shoe laces for the race anyway) and the people in the store (mostly high school kids) replied "I dont know" to practically every question I answered. As opposed to when asking a question at say Fleet Feet or Performance Cycle when you ask a sport specific question they will give you the kinds of answers you are looking for. They are also much better at recommending gear, supplements, etc and really listen to you and are invested in insuring your success..unlike a place like the Big Box stores where the kids are just there for a paycheck. - For example: I was looking for a dual water bottle holder to use on Tri day. At Dicks (where I went first) the kid "didnt know if they had any" [they didn't] and the next person suggested I try Wal Mart.
Long story short, when I was at Performance Cycle, I asked them if they had dual water bottle holders, and the sales guy (who remembered selling me my bike) told me that a dual water bottle holder wouldn't work with my bike, because my bike is not a Tri Bike and there is no mount for it. And suggested I just add a second single bottle mount to my bike instead.

I'm going to also be adding a new feature to my blog " Millie Likes" I know I'm no Oprah, and my favorite things carry little clout (however, I, unlike Oprah do not get paid for my opinions or giving my seal of approval) I just have tried a lot of different items, and want to pass along the things I find to be the best.

That's all for today

Less than a week to raceday!

~Millie :)

0 comments: