A Lot of Miles and a Few Excuses

Ride Day (Saturday)
time - 4:05
distance- 66.6mi

Run Day (Sunday)
time- I'm A
distance- Big Wuss

Saturday was a great ride day. At 6:30am, I met up with a Dirtbag follower named Sean who had been offering to let me join him on a weekend ride. This was a great plan. I got out and on the road early, I got to follow someone with plenty of experience, and the miles go by a lot faster when you aren't riding alone. Safer too. And I discovered a new road to destroy my legs on. Good times.
Instead of my normal out-and-back through Haleiwa, Sean and I coasted down Pineapple Hill and struck out north. He set a strong pace and I did my damnedest to keep up. Which means he pretty promptly dropped me off the back. But, being a gracious riding partner, he would stop or slow many times during the ride so that I could catch back up. I, for the most part, played Dirtbag See, Dirtbag Do. Sean pedaled harder, I pedaled harder. He dropped onto his aerobars, so did I. I wasn't really trying to keep pace with him, though. That would have been bad for me in the long run. Dude runs super distances and is preparing for Kona next month.
A few miles after Waimea he tells me, "Ok, we're going to climb Pupukea." Uh, ok. I don't know what that is. This was probably a good thing. You see, as of Saturday I officially stop calling Kolekole a "climb". It's not. Pupukea is. It's about three miles of lots of up-ness. And I'm huffing and puffing up this thing and Sean is cruising along next to me, having a conversation. If you could call this a conversation:
Him: "So, how'd you get in to triathlon?"
Me: *huff* "Well," *huff breathe huff suck wind*, "I'll tell you at the top."
Him: "Ok. I *talktalktalk like it's easy.*"
Not that I'm, complaining. It helped keep my mind focused on the task at hand and I think I got up faster than I would have alone. The part that sticks out is right near the beginning, I'm already thinking, "This is tough, but I've got it." And he goes, "This next part gets a little steep." I look and, I'm not 100% on this but I think, the road goes straight up. Good stuff. Makes Dirtbag strong. But the way back down was worth it. Made me think of something Cycle Dirtbag told me once. He said, "I'm not build to be a climber. But I've got a perfect body to be a descender."
The rest of the ride out was uneventful but fun. Beautiful weather, some headwind but not too bad. Pretty cool to zip past the shrimp trucks. We stopped at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie. This was my turn-around point for my target distance. He was heading on for another fifteen miles or so before turning around. And he was tackling Pupukea again. No, I wasn't. We chatted for a while about all things endurance sport and some things life then went our separate ways. It was fun, and we should do it again.
The trip back alone went quick and well. No problems, no worrisome cars or blind pedestrians. I did a mini-lap when I got back to Haleiwa because I was actually going to be a few miles short of my goal if I went straight up Pineapple and home. Forgot about that six miles up and back Pupukea that wouldn't be there going the other way. No worries, easy fix.
Pineapple was as brutal as it's ever been. Remember, on these long ride days I've been tackling it in the first 30 miles, call it the first hour and a half. Saturday I hit the bottom 3:11 into the ride. Very different attitude coming out of my legs. Struggled up it, got it done, ain't so bad, manly noise, manly noise. Overall a great ride day.
Of course, then I became a moron. I don't think I drank quite enough during the ride, but it would have been ok. And my nutrition on the bike was good. Unfortunately, I didn't think about water when I got home and only drank another water bottle of H20 in the next two hours. Bad choice, Dirtbag Dummy. I was feeling terribly dehydrated and had to chill on the couch nursing a Powerade. Didn't help we had roofers mending the roof (what else would they be doing?) and had to windows closed, making it *bleep*ing hot. I won't make that mistake again.
Today was supposed to be a run. I have many excuses for why it wasn't. Ready?
- I woke up later in the day and it was already *redacted* hot.
- We went grocery shopping in the afternoon and got back after dark, so I missed the part of daylight when it wasn't *expurgated* hot.
- I'm a big wuss and my cramps Thursday shook me up. I'll get back on the horse, no worries there.
- I have the Waikiki RoughWater swim tomorrow morning and I really want to do well. So I'm using that as an excuse for not running too.
See? Lots of excuses, none of them make me happy. I hate missing workouts. But I felt like it was unsafe-hot today to be out when I could have been. I need to be better. After Monday's swim I'll start getting more balanced with the workouts again. After all, Ko'Olina is coming right up too.
I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I'm better trained than I have been for either of the other two swim races this summer so as long as Mother Nature plays along I think I should have a good showing.
Also bought some toys for the bike today, so look for that update in the coming weeks. How far along depends completely on amazon.com.