Triathlon Friday, solo

At 5:30, the alarm went off. I had no interest in getting out of bed, and since I had no friends planning to meet me for my workout, I figured I didn't have to. But by 5:45 I was imagining how hard it would be to eat properly if I didn't work out and how mad I'd be at myself later in the day if I didn't work out, so I got out of bed and headed to Idylwood.

There I hoped there would be no swimmers so it wouldn't be safe for me to get in the water - and in fact, the only people I saw had water skis, so I figured they wouldn't be joining me to lap the buoys - but down at the water there were a couple of swimmers, and then a few more came, so pretty much I had no choice but to swim. However, I didn't swim long - I mostly ended up chatting with a woman who did Danskin and wanted to know how I did, and then it turns out we're both racing tomorrow, so we talked about that. I was in the water for about 20 minutes but actually swimming only for 10 or so.

I had a fun bike route planned for myself, though - one long climb (Northup) and one short one (50th). But when I finished 50th, I decided it was too short so I needed to do it again.

I was trying to keep my effort level fairly low, but when another cyclist blew by me, I had to talk out loud to myself to keep myself from chasing. I'm constantly wanting to prove what a strong rider I am - I was only going about 15 mph when I got passed - and I almost yelled to him that I could ride a lot faster but I was going easy in preparation for a race tomorrow. Like he cares, anyway! I'm so freaking competitive. I often dislike that about myself.

So I rode for 45 minutes, enjoyed it, and then decided not to run since it was getting late.

Anyway, in other news, I spent an hour yesterday at Sammamish Valley Cycle talking about different wheels and bicycles. I'm thinking about buying a tri bike, assuming Santa Bill is good to me this year (we get bonuses in September, and I've got a whole bunch of stock from previous years' awards vesting in a couple of days, and I had completely forgotten that those stock awards are real money so it's completely "extra" in our budget so I could funnel it into a bike. Or consider saving for the future or something...but that's no fun). I've got an appointment next week to ride some bikes. I'm thinking about staying away from aluminum and going for titanium or carbon. My current bike is carbon and I love how it feels. But we'll see...the bikes I'm looking at, complete with race wheels, are looking to cost somewhere between $4,500 and $6,000 - and I'm just not sure I'm good enough to really benefit from a bike that nice.

So I should probably meal and exercise track now...here goes:

Food:
Pre-workout: 1 Vitatop and milk in coffee, 130 cals
Breakfast: Bagel with cream cheese (carboloading?), milk in coffee: 430 cals
Lunch: Shrimp and veggie stir-fry over rice: 450 cals
total so far: 1010 calories

Exercise:
Swim and bike, 500 cals burned