Jackie D - Week 32

Week 32 - starting Monday 23 April 2007

Scheduled hours: 13hrs 30mins
Actual hours: 14hrs 02mins

Pretty much on schedule this week - difference is masters swimming sessions tend to be 15mins more than scheduled swims. No big deal. Swimming felt good this week and I think it may be something to do with the fact that I ate a gel just before I went. I am considering taking a sports drink to put at end of pool. I know I won’t have that for the event (I wonder if there are drinks after the first loop?) but if it makes my training more productive then surely that must be a good thing.

A frustrating day was had on Wednesday. Due to some school commitments I can’t do my long ride on Friday so decided to do it Wednesday. I even checked the weather forecast (not that that would have stopped me!) and it said about 50F and cloudy but no rain until the evening. I packed up my bike with gels and aerobar water bottle filled with Gatorade etc etc and headed out towards Honoeye Lake as soon as the school buses had departed. Within about half an hour a few spots of rain started falling - not significant but would be later. At just over an hour, having bumped through the roadworks at Honoeye Falls I felt like I was bouncing on the bike. Weird feeling. I stopped and I saw I had a slowish puncture in the back tyre which must have been the cause. No big deal I thought, I really need the practice of changing flat tyres out on the road as I hadn’t done one successfully to date (yes at home, but not out whilst riding). So, I took my time, went through the procedure, struggled to get the tyre back on but all looked good. For some reason my brain must have seized and it took me AGES to figure out how to get the back wheel back on but eventually I loaded up again and off I went. BTW 3 cars stopped to offer help/ride - what nice people. Raining pretty hard by now. Every time the wheel went round it went like I was going over a bump. Uh oh! So I stop and see a tell tale sign of the tyre not properly on at the valve area and think, must have pinched the tube. Nothing for it but to get off, unload and take the darn wheel off again. I decide if I let some air out then I will be able to rectify the problem and then pump it back up with my second (and smaller and last) CO2 cartridge. Well, success, I manage to get the tube and tyre looking good and get the CO2 in and well, the tyre is a bit softer than I would like but all good. So, I decide to change my route. Instead of keeping heading south, I decide to back track and go across to Mendon and see the nice man at MendonCyclesmith to pump up the pressure and to buy another spare tube. Great plan. I am cold and soaked (I never knew CO2 was so cold either) but still determined that I can make my 4 hours. Ten minutes later the bike feels funny again and I have another flat just as I am heading back out of Honoeye Falls. At this point I only have a patch repair kit and no way to pump tyre up and it is pouring down and I decide to call it a day. Something niggles in my mind that there is a cycle shop somewhere around but I think it is heading out on a road I am not on and too far to walk in cycle shoes. So I call in the rescue party - darling hubby who I call out of a meeting with the big bosses over from UK (oops - I guess he does love me so!). Meanwhile I am shivering uncontrollably (it is OK whilst moving but having spent 50 minutes in total sitting on the side of a road trying to “do my repairs” I am now cold - the weather man was SO wrong), so I waddle up to a diner to go and have a coffee. Lucky I am in a town really. But, I see that there is no where to leave my bike where I can keep my eye on it and I would rather stay in the rain than risk that (am I mad?). So, I try a sub/ pizza place. They don’t have any hot drinks, I can’t face anything cold or anything to eat so I ask if I can sit in to keep warm until my ride arrives. The owner (I think) then takes pity on me and brews me up a coffee specially. What a nice man! I am rescued and will have to try for this ride again the next day or at the weekend. Hubby drops me off at home with instructions to take a nice hot bath. I put dry clothes on - consult my schedule, all is not lost - and head for the gym! Later I head for the bike shop and tell them my woes. I get a new back tyre as well as some more tubes and the man offers to change it for me. NO I say, I really do need the practice. But he is an angel. He says “Why don’t you do it here and then I can watch and give you some pointers?” Of course I leap gratefully at this idea and so I have had a flat tyre changing lesson. Thank you so much. Still yet to do one successfully out on the road though which is a bit worrying.

After the above I rescheduled my long ride for the weekend and managed to do it with no flats. I did about 4 loops relatively close to home though, just needed to do that psychologically. 4 hours, embarrassingly slow pace of just over 15mph (but it was raining, again, windy and grey) BUT that is my longest ride ever. Hopefully I’ll be saying that again next week.

My week finished off with a Breakthrough run. It was only some zone 3 work but it felt good and I feel good and am eager for next week.

12 WEEKS TO GO