Still NO Running, But I DID Log Some Miles

I couldn't remember the last time I ran.

Then I looked in my workout log book.

June 24th was my last official run.

More than a month ago.

While I had the log book open in, I counted the days to my Disneyland 1/2 marathon (38 days) and my TriRock Olympic Distance Triathlon (45 days) and my Soma Half Ironman (87 days).

Seeing those numbers should have upset me.

But they didn't.

Since my laundry incident on June 12th, where I injured my patella tendon, I have realized a few things.

1. If you are injured - take care of yourselfI sucked it up and bandaged my leg and competed in a triathlon about 10 days after my accident, when I really should have been smarter and kinder to my body and RICEed  (rest, ice, compression, elevation) it. But no, I wanted to compete. So what if I bettered my time from last year by a little more than a minute. In hindsight, it was NOT a smart thing to do.

2. Turning Lemons into Lemonade is a good thing.

    So I can't run....I have spent my running time riding my bike and working on my swimming. Since I can't MASH the pedals with my right leg, I have learned to really spin it. Yep, I am a little slower going up hills. I mean, how fast do you have to spin your legs to go 20 mph up a hill? Don't ask me because I have NOT been able to do it yet. I can spin pretty fast on the flats...and I am looking forward to the time when I can add some muscle to that spin. 

I have spent more time in the pool working on my swim technique. I am not sure I am faster, but, jeez, I can swim an entire hour and not get out of breathe or start thinking, "When the hell is this workout over?"  I am even starting to feel "pretty" when I swim.

What I probably look like. But I feel like this

Well, except I DO wear a bathing suit or a wet suit. But I think this is pretty.

3. Get Rid of the Ego.....You wouldn't think I would have one after all I have admitted in this blog (such as, peeing on a towel in T1). But darn it, it is hard to go on a group ride and have a cyclist pass me when I know they are slower than me. It has been tortuously hard to let those "slower" riders go by me. I had to stuff my ego down and think about my freaking knee and how I needed to take care of it. So I just plastered a smile on my face and spun on. I have shoved my ego down so much in the past 4 weeks that now, I am not sure I have one...which is apparent by the lack of makeup I have been wearing lately.

By putting my Ego aside, I have realized that no matter what speed I ride my bike - I LIKE TO RIDE MY BIKE!

So screw all you fast people who are mashing on your pedals and going past me. Okay, just kidding.

4. Running is NOT everything.....but it is something.

It is irony that I can't run right now. After all my bitching and complaining about running, I can't do it. And I do want to run. Mostly, I miss my trail running. So I have learned my cosmic lesson and from here on out, when I DO get to run, I am going to LOVE it and feel grateful for every hard, pounding step.

5. (And this is the last one....I promise). No matter what my injury, I can always find some way to exercise so I can stay in shape and stay healthy. So I can't run. I have walked. I have hiked. I have spent a lot of time on the elliptical machine and a lot of time on the treadmill with the setting on the highest grade. My legs have been getting a workout, without pounding my knee.

So it's been 4 weeks since my doctor said no running for 4 to 6 weeks. It's been 2 weeks since my second opinion doctor said no running for 4 to 6 weeks. My plan is to keep doing what I have been doing for another week and then take a "test" jog.

So what, if I have to walk my half marathon?

So what, if I have to walk the 10k of my Olympic Distance Triathlon?

And

So what, if I have to walk/jog the run in my half Ironman?

My goal is to Finish!

But please GOD, let me be able to run.

 



Until Next Year Tour de France!

The Tour de France ended today.

The 3-week race started June 30 with 198 cyclists and ended today with 153 cyclists.
For 21 of the 23 days of the Tour, the cyclists pedaled.
Me, too!

Congratulations to Bradley Wiggins, aka Wiggo, for earning the Yellow Jersey.

It was entertaining to watch Peter Sagan as he won sprints and some stages to earn the green jersey.

Sagan's "Hulk" impression.

Thomas Voeckler earned the red polka dots on a white background King of the Mountain jersey.
It seems a lot of the tour spectators like wearing the KOM clothes and hats, too. It's not something I would pick to wear.

It kind of reminds me of the measles.

The white jersey was awarded to Tejay Van Garderen for being the best young rider.....and he deserved it, since he was also number 5 overall. But why did they give him that white stuffed animal?

It looked like a stuffed Abominable Snowman. I have googled and I have looked in Tour Fever - The Armchair Cyclist's Guide to the Tour de France and I have looked in Tour de France for Dummies and I can find NO information about why they give a stuffed Yeti to the winner of the white jersey.

Maybe because it is the only white animal they could think of? But it's not even a REAL animal. It is fictional.

And then there is the Lantern Rouge.

I can find a lot of information about the Red Lantern.

The winner of this award is not asked to stand on the podium and he is not even handed a red lantern.

But he knows he got it.

The Lantern Rouge refers to the red lantern hung on the caboose of the railway train.

This year the end of the train award went to Jimmy Engoulvent.

No Jimmy, you didn't win first place....you won last place!

Jimmy gets to take home the distinction of being in LAST PLACE. When it was all said and done today, Jimmy was number 153. The rider who took the longest time to finish the Tour de France.

But Jimmy should be happy about his finish because 45 cyclists never made it to the finish line. Lots left the tour because of injuries from the numerous crashes. Frank Schleck pulled out because of "doping."

Several of the cyclists pulled out to get ready for this year's Olympics.

A couple of riders got dropped because they finished outside of the time limit.

Congratulations Jimmy Engoulvent!

You finished!!

You didn't crash out!!!

You didn't dope out!!!!

You didn't ride so slow that you got booted out!!!!!

You were slow, but go.

I can really relate to that, Jimmy.

The Tour de France cyclists traveled over about 2,173 miles during their 21 days of riding. That average to 103 miles a day for the pros.

I had set a goal to ride 25 percent of what the tour rides did....544 miles, or 23 miles a day.

My intention was to ride EVERY DAY of the Tour, even on the pros' rest day.

I didn't make it. I pulled a Fabian Cancellara.

The second cutest in the Tour? Really? I don't think Mark Cavendish has anything on Cancellara.

Cancellara stepped up to the plate from the beginning of the Tour and wore the yellow jersey for several days.

So did I. Well, figuratively, because I met my goal every day for those first days, but I don't own any shirts that are yellow.

In the first 20 days of the Tour, I logged 456.28 miles.

Cancellara left the Tour after Stage 10.

Why?

Cancellara left the Tour to go home to be with his wife in the final days of her pregnancy before focusing on defending his Olympic time-trial title at this year's Olympics.

Cancellara said: "I am not only a bike rider, I am also a husband and father with another baby on the way. It is my personal wish to be present when my wife Stefanie gives birth to our second child."

I can relate to this. My cycling plan fell apart on Day 21 of the Tour because, "I am not just a bike-riding triathlete that can not run at this time because of a pantellar tendon injury, I am also a wife and mother of three, one of which is an adult child with a mental disability. It is my personal wish to be available to my child whenever it is needed to make sure my child is safe and getting the required treatment."

So for two days, I did not ride my bike.
I didn't feel too badly about this. After all, the pros on the Tour took two days off. Sure, they were spaced apart. I just happened to take my two days together.

I did ride my bike today. I rode with my 20-year-old son and friends to the beach to get some breakfast. I logged another 33.63 miles.

Total for me for the 2012 Tour de France Challenge: 489.91 miles.
The pros averaged 94.47 miles a day. I average 21.30 miles a day. To meet my 25 percent goal, I would have had to ride 23.61 miles a day.

Just hand me the red lantern. I'll add it to my collection.

Until next year, Tour de France!

I Rode, but not Road

Since the beginning of the Tour de France on June 30, I have jumped on my road bike every day and ridden 20 plus miles.

My motto has been - They ride, I ride!

Even when the Tour had a rest day.....I rode!

Today I just couldn't do it.

I just could not get on my road bike and ride over the same streets that I have been riding on the past days.

I could not make myself lift my Cannondale off the rafter pegs.

Me riding my bike at Desert Tri.

My bike didn't get to go out on the road today.

But I did ride!

I rode 21.38 miles......on my mountain bike.

I rode on the Gage Canal from one end to the other.

This is me at an earlier time when I could RUN the Gage Canal. Earlier this week Doc said to start walking a mile a day for 7 days, then I could add in a little jog IF my knee was feeling okay.

I have run the Gage Canal before, but just in bits and pieces, and never to the end.

So today I wondered....how far can I ride my bike on the canal? My guy and I did have to make a couple of detours where the canal went underground and stopped at a fence or a major road. But we just rode around on orange grove streets and picked the canal back up a block or two from where we had dropped it.

Don't worry - during our ride The Tour was not far from my mind.

As I road along on the dirt patch next to the canal, I glanced to my right and saw a wicked barbed wire fence.

"Hey, you know what that reminds me of?" I asked my guy.

"What?"

"Hoogerland."

And then I inched my bike a little closer to the canal, away from the fence.

After I got the mental image of Hoggerland's crash in last year's Tour out of my mind, I enjoyed riding along the canal through citrus groves, nurseries and by lots of horses.

 

Then we were at the end!

The end of the canal was not what I expected.

End of of the line....after about 11 miles we came to the end of the canal. Robert said he saw some fish.

 The curbing went to the fence of someone's backyard. We did go around a couple of streets and tried to pick up the canal's trail, but it was a new housing tract and we did not bring our divining rod with us.

But the search for the canal route is not over.

We had ridden the canal as far as we could, but we wondered? If we start at the beginning of Cleveland Ave, how far can we ride on it?

We started at the west end of Cleveland Avenue and rode on it for about 5 miles. We passed citrus groves and nurseries. We did not have to share the road with any cars.

 

I thought we would be able to ride on Cleveland all the way to Jefferson....but we dead-ended in a nursery.

We took Victoria Avenue part of the way home.

s

Victoria Avenue is on the National Registry of Historical Places. I have put in most of my miles these past 13, now 14 days on this avenue.

Tomorrow I will be back to riding on it - On my road bike.







Tour de France - It's turning me into a Couch Potato!

Le Tour de France

Oh, I would love to be there!

But I am not, so I am doing the next best thing. I am sitting on my butt and watching it on television, until I get up and ride.

I have been riding EVERY DAY since the Tour started.

It's my motto - they ride, I ride.

But the truth is - I have been sitting my butt on the couch more than I have been sitting my butt on my bike saddle.

VERSUS

Here's the stats - Since the beginning of the Tour 10 days ago, I have sat my butt on the couch and watched other people pedaling their bikes for 25 hours. The live program is saved to my TV and all together it is more like 30 plus hours of programming, but I fast forward through all the commercial.

Well, except for the Road ID commercials.
They make me laugh.
 

Bob Roll drives away in a gold cart....on his way to his bike ride with some famous cyclist.

Okay, so 25 hours sitting on my butt watching TV.

Every day since the Tour started, I have put my foot to pedal and ridden at a minimum 20 miles. I can't run (doc says at least 3 more weeks), so I might as well ride...oh and swim, but that's another story.

So 10 days bike riding for me equals 18 hours.

STATS - TV watching 25 hours versus bike riding 18 hours.

The Tour is turning me into a couch potato.

Tomorrow is a rest day for the Tour!

I bet they are going to sit around and watch TV!!
Not me.

I am going to be riding my bicycle!!!!

Wild Party Party Week!

Oh yeah!

I got my party on this week and who could blame me.

The Tour (Tour de France) started last Saturday. Then I went to a friend's retirement party. I worked out for one day by painting a bathroom and laundry room. Then I celebrated my 26th Wedding Anniversary on Monday, my 52nd birthday on Tuesday, and the Fourth of July on Wednesday. My sister's birthday was on Thursday and yippee it's Friday today.

Even with all the celebrations I did manage to get some training in....though not any running. Doc says 3 to 4 more weeks of NO running, which is really torturous when my guy says, "Oh, I am going out for a run," and then he is gone for a couple of hours.

AAUUUGGGHHHH!

Who knew I would ever be JEALOUS of someone who was out running.

To make up for not being able to run, I signed up for mapmyride.com's Tour Challenge. I signed up to ride 544 miles in the 23 days of the tour.

If they can ride, I can ride.

I just can't ride as far every day, and I don't have devils, Vikings or half naked men chasing me!

Yeah, that's what I am talking about!

As of today, the Tour has ridden 764 miles. I have ridden 154.4 miles.

Not as much as those pros, but I have ridden EVERY DAY that they have. My knee is good. My butt is a little sore.

For our Anniversary, Robert and I went to Belmont Shore and swam at Bayshore (aka Horny Corner). No joke. I don't make these things up.....you just go and google Horny Corner and see what you come up with.

After our swim we took a ride in a gondola around Naples Island.

We probably could have swam around the island faster than our gondolier propelled us, but it would not have been as romantic and we would not have had Frank Sinatra playing in the background...unless we had been swimming with our H20 audio headphones.

I

The guy in the back (who just happened to be a student at UCR, R being for Riverside - where Robert and I live, and he was off for the summer and back living at his mom and dad's and earning some bucks. It is a small world).

I didn't lift any weights this week. Except for these -

Let's not forget that EVERY DAY for the past 7 days I have pedaled my bike for 20 plus miles - EVERY DAY!

So after several days of straight celebrating, I got a little more serious today and swam at Lake Perris. It was windy and lots of boats were in the water at at about 1000 yards I felt as if I was in a washing machine.

After I puked in the water, I knew it was time to get out. Luckily, I had some Ginger Altoids in my car.

I pulled it together and was able to ride my 20 plus miles.

You may think this is the end of my week.....but NO!

Tonight my friend took me to see Magic Mike!

The entire theater was filled with women.

And who can blame them.

This made me feel very patriotic!

Too bad these aren't the half naked guys at the Tour!!

The end of my party week is in sight.....after tomorrow night. To celebrate our birthdays my sister and I are going out together to see a Queen Tribute band.

I may need a rest day to recuperate from my celebration week....or at least a long bike ride.