Three days biking PLUS a brick

I was supposed to met Lance and JD at Jackson at 6:30AM this morning (Saturday). Sleeping in on a Saturday is so nice - the extra thirty minutes is magical. At 6:20AM I opened the garage to hit the road. My rear tire on my race bike was flat - AGAIN! I had just changed it the night before. I always keep flatted tubes and patch them - it is all part of that recycle / reduce / reuse thing. If we are riding together and you get a flat and you don't patch them I will always take them. The patch is supposed to be stronger than the tube itself. I never have any problem with patched tubes - until now. So earlier in the week I noticed that I had a very slow leak in my rear tire. I pulled the tube and could not find the leak. I pumped it up and felt around. Nothing. I actually had to get a bucket of water to find the leak. Air was slowly leaking from a patch I put on - damn the luck. I went ahead and replaced the tube with another patched tube having complete confidence in my patching ability.

So this patched tube was leaking also. I called Lance and told him that I would be just a couple of minutes - they would wait for me at a cross street. Well, I'm pretty quick at replacing tubes now so I put some latex gloves on (I always flat the rear wheel and I don't want the chain grease all over me) and put in a BRAND NEW TUBE.

So I got to the cross road a minute or two before Lance and JD rolled up. We were going to do an easy 40 miles. This would be the third consecutive day of riding for me (104 miles). The legs are tired but not too tired. We rolled on at not break neck speed but we averaged right at 20 MPH for the ride. I took a few hard quick pulls but for most of the ride it was easy spinning.

I decided to burn off a quick brick after the ride. I have a near Olympic race (only a 1/2 mile swim - every thing else is Olympic) in about a month and I want to have a good run. This was a HARD brick - not RACE PACE HARD - but hard none the less. I used my Zoot shoes again (second time running in them) without socks of course. Maybe a little bit of a hot spot or two on my feet for the first 1/4 mile but that was soon forgotten as the legs started to burn. The last mile was just a little long but I will call it a mile. I hate that I slowed but it was a little long and there is a small hill to get back home. I saw JD doing his brick during the run - he was toughing it out.

BRICK
mile 1 - 7:05 - AVE HR 153
mile 2 - 7:05 - AVE HR 167
mile 3 - 7:31 - AVE HR 172

I was pleased with these times. If, and that is a big if - If I can see any 6's on the run in any race I will be very happy. Not sure if that is possible in a 10k near Olympic race but I have a sprint in early July and that is what I will be shooting for.