Another fine ride!

I was thinking about running a local 10K today, but the extra sleep was a fantastic alternative!

The weather was just barely nice enough (45 degrees and threatening to rain) for another lovely spin today along the W&OD Trail on Buttercup. Exhilarating! We only went 10.7 miles and averaged 12.8 mph, but we did it without any significant catastrophes. :)

When I started out the bike computer wasn't working, and I discovered that I had put the front tire on backwards. I want to get odometer credit for every mile, so I stopped and flipped it around. I was quite relieved that it was the only screwup I found after loosening or changing or adjusting just about every single part of the entire bike during my bike maintenance class!

I'm discovering my dreadful lack of hip flexibility is a bit of a problem. Remember swinging your leg wide over your bike saddle to hop on or off? Well, yeah, for me that's just a memory too. I have to do this dreadfully awkward tip-the-bike and step over thing. Another thing to work on, because that's sure going to look really really stupid in the triathlon transition zones when I trip myself on the rear-mounted water cages and go flying on my face in front of everyone.

I worked on keeping my cadence above 80, which kept me WAY down into the low gears on the way out, which is slightly uphill heading upstream along Four Mile Run. I worked a little on my rusty bike handling skills, banking around corners and slow walkers on the trail. Down into granny gear for a couple of steep hills, trying to stay down in the aerobars and in the saddle until the final most difficult part of the climb. I can tell this is going to be a long process.

My biggest limiting factor right now seems to be crotch endurance. No colossal abrasions this time, thank heavens. I wore my Trek bike shorts which have more padding than the tri shorts, plus I had the new Quintana Roo seat cover. I still think I may have to swap out the saddle for a girl model with cutouts, though, which I hate to do because it did come with quite a nice tri-saddle. I did have to stop once (I picked a field far from prying eyes) and reach down into the front of the shorts and rearrange things. I felt so macho. At least I don't feel like I need a crotchectomy today, but I just may after 56 miles on June 12.

I was also able to reach down, grab the water bottle, and take a swig fairly readily, which is a bit of a trick with the spout pointing towards my elbow. I only swerved slightly, and squirted myself accidentally in the face only a little bit. Good to practice with water and not Gatorade.

On the shopping list: cool new sunglasses that are wraparound but yet have a little ventilation (sweaty eyes make it hard to see); and a new helmet that a) has room for a ponytail without forcing my neck into an unnatural position; and b) coordinates with Buttercup's neon yellow-with-red-accents paint scheme.