Riding the Lake Stevens course...or not

So yesterday I took half a day off from work to go back up to Lake Stevens to ride the bike course one more time. I did it in early May once and just wanted to see it again, prepare a gearing strategy, etc.

Well, I looked at my cleats yesterday morning and the tip of the left cleat was completely broken off - meaning, would not clip in anymore. So I asked Danielle to pick up new cleats for me before she met me here at work to go up to Lake Stevens (about an hour away). Wendy, another triathlete doing the Lake Stevens 70.3, joined us for the ride as well.

We get up to Lake Stevens, eat a yummy vegetarian lunch Danielle brought us, pump up our bike tires, put on sunscreen, and then I go to try out my new cleats. I can't clip in. Turns out, there's more than one size of Look cleats - and my pedals require the smaller size. So the cleats Danielle got me were too big for my pedals! No ride for me! (Lake Stevens is tiny - no bike shop - and had we tried to drive to a nearby city, find a bike shop, and then drive back, we wouldn't have time to ride before Danielle and I had to be back home.)

So I felt awful for Wendy and Danielle, who expected to get at least something of a workout, and I wanted them to ride without me. They didn't want to, though, so instead we spent the time doing something probably equally as useful: driving the bike course and discussing different parts of it, what gears we'd be in, where we'd need to be careful, where we could let loose on the downhills, etc. Then we went to find the transition area and check out the water (it's warm), then we drove the run course. There's a fairly long hill on an out-and-back part - that won't be that exciting. All the way up to go down...but then do that in reverse. And, I think, twice. At least I'm a hill climber. Unfortunately, though, there's little shade for much of the run course and it's supposed to be 90 degrees. I think I'm going to make the strategic decision to carry my own water in my fuel belt to ensure I have enough.

I did work out yesterday though: I ran for an hour in the morning, then swam in Lake Sammamish. My run was perfect - no knee pain at all - then I learned something really important on the swim. I had bought a $35 Costco wetsuit just for fun, and because it's cute. I figured I might wear it for a late-season sprint like Danskin.

Well, it's not buoyant AT ALL. It was like swimming in a bathing suit, which is fine, but why should I waste precious transition time on a "wetsuit" that doesn't offer any buoyancy or even warmth? And what's the point of the thing, anyway? Must be psychological comfort - it certainly wasn't physiological. So I made another decision: despite the fact that the water in Lake Stevens is at least as warm as Lake Sammamish, I will wear my full wetsuit for the half-IM swim. I'm choosing to be warm but buoyant (and have to work less hard) versus comfortable temperature-wise, but having to work much harder to swim. In the wetsuit, I barely have to move my legs; yesterday in the Costco thing, I needed to actually kick.

This morning I wanted to ride my bike to work, but John had a bit of a tantrum about me riding alone, so I slept in (until 6 a.m. - and I had gone to bed at 9 because I was in a bad mood, so that was a ton of sleep for me!) and drove with him to drop off the kids, then rode the rest of the way in to work together. It was actually quite nice. I worked on cadence - I switched my bike computer to show cadence instead of speed and tried to keep it above 90 all the time. I found it really hard, especially on the parts of the route where I like to go really fast. However, John's computer was showing mph, so I was able to ask him, and I was surprised to find that despite feeling "slow" pedaling much faster, I was keeping my normal speeds through the rollers. I wonder if this is an indication that if I really work on cadence when I ride outside, will I get so much faster even when I am in a big gear? Because I felt like I wasn't working at all, but my speed was still high. I don't know why I feel like I need to be working hard all the time...but maybe I need to train my legs to love high cadence, then they'll learn to love it in a big gear, and THEN I'll be working hard again!