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Riding in Columbus this evening. It was very warm:
We’re doing the Chattahoochee Sprint Tri tomorrow. And, as we always do at this particular race, we rode the bike course the night before.
I road so fast the sticker on my rim fell off!
That’s twice I’ve done that now. It has nothing to do with speed and a lot to do with adhesive, I assure you.
And now off for the pre-race pasta dinner.
Rode my bike to the store yesterday. It wasn’t really a recovery ride. I guess I sort of rationalized it to myself that way, but I didn’t work that hard in the race yesterday anyway. I did this today, though:
We needed a few things, beans and tomatoes and the like, and I can go on the random daily store run on my bicycle in the summer.
Truly, it is the infinitesimally small things that can earn a real grin.
Plus carrying a bike through a grocery story is fun. I stuffed them in my musette bag, almost wiped out in bike shoes on the slick floor and walked my ride all over the store. Nobody has ever given my bike a second look at the grocery store, which is cool.
Guy behind me at the checkout made a joke about not knowing where they stocked the bicycles. I told him they were over by the produce, but, you know how they’re always moving things around.
He didn’t ask what aisle had the spandex.
I took a long way home, just to add a few miles to the route. So I tried a new route, sometimes you see things you’ve never seen before:
The route involved two paths and a wooden bridge. It was worth it:
The triathlon that we thought about just riding our bikes too.
And then we each thought “I don’t want to carry all that stuff on my bike,” and wisely decided to drive.
This was the first local triathlon, a nice easy sprint, and we were so proud to take part. Our local bike shop ran the thing. It was small, first year and all, casual and a lot of fun.
I was terrible in the lake. I’m always terrible in the swim.
Don’t get me wrong, I can swim, I’m not a threat to drown or anything, but I’m not a distance swimmer. Lately I’ve been getting advice from a very patient coach. And it probably helped for about 100 meters. It all comes down to breathing and how I tend to not do that.
You know, while riding or running, if you don’t breathe you just stop moving or remind yourself about the in-and-out nature of respiration or, at worst, black out. In the water, when the body realizes the lungs aren’t breathing correctly the lizard part of your brain tends to take over. At that point, my swim is basically over. So, I’m terrible in the swim.
Apparently, though, I was third on the bike course. (I do not know what is happening.) I’ve been riding pretty well lately, but that is a surprising result, if the times were accurate. The route was basically my home roads, though, so that’s probably part of it.
I would pass the occasional person, give them the “Good job!” and warn them of a pothole just ahead. That’s probably annoying in retrospect.
Didn’t have a very good run. I’ve only run that route once before, last weekend, and didn’t think it was too hard. Foolishly, I forgot to add in the bike and swim exertion in that one trial run. But that bad run up the mountain let me meet a guy who said he was just two weeks from knee surgery. He’s racing next weekend, too. Make sure you tell the surgeon about this, I said, impressed.
“Yeah, doc, let’s get this thing fixed. By the way, I’ve run in two sprint triathlons the last two weekends.”
On the way down the mountain I ran into a guy who was here just to measure himself for an upcoming Olympic distance race he’s going to do. Don’t think he was too pleased, so I spent the last quarter mile of our run trying to convince him that this will scale up well.
Now this one, she had a great race. She’s clearly in mid-season form, having finished just outside the podium:
Later, trying on my sweet new tri shirt:
Silly weather, hampering my bike riding. Just look at that temperature, in the fourth photo down — hence the short, 16-mile ride.
Today Auburn played a doubleheader against Vanderbilt. There’s rain in the forecast today, so let’s play two! … Against one of the best teams in the country and the defending national champions. No biggie!
We watched almost eight hours of baseball today. Good thing we got in a bike ride this morning, however so brief. In between games we got a snack and then went back to sit in the cooling night air, get rained on and watch a marathon, 10-inning game. Auburn was down, but not out. In the bottom of the ninth all of this happened.
Auburn, down by three to #4 Vandy in the bottom of the 9th. pic.twitter.com/T2jC78ne8z
— kenny smith (@kennysmith) March 22, 2015
Vandy walked in another run. Now 5-4 in the bottom of the ninth. pic.twitter.com/48gpv5y1tO
— kenny smith (@kennysmith) March 22, 2015
Single drives in the tying run! 6-6! pic.twitter.com/oCiICdYKFs
— kenny smith (@kennysmith) March 22, 2015
Full count, bases loaded, tie game, blown-save Vandy pitcher makes the play of the night. pic.twitter.com/c7KJDMvHQp
— kenny smith (@kennysmith) March 22, 2015
And then, with the score tied, Vandy went ahead by a run in the 10th. In the bottom of the frame it all came down to a bloop single in right field.
Vanderbilt wins in 10, 7-6, and takes the series 2-1. Great rally by Auburn to get the extra frame. pic.twitter.com/vJyvlgnpPY
— kenny smith (@kennysmith) March 22, 2015
Apparently the TV announcers said the umpire blew the call. Our DVR recorded three hours of the game, which got us through the first eight innings, but not the next 63 minutes of game time.
It was a long day. Auburn lost the series, but it looks like they proved to themselves that they can hang with a great team. In the press box, meanwhile, the poor guy ran out of songs to play from his iPod, I think.
Good times, nice people and plenty of fun.
