And what a dull boy jack has become.....

It's been a while since I even _looked_ at this blog. I had to go back and read my last post, just to remember what the fuck I wrote.

"all work and no play makes jack a dull boy" hit it for me. From all the grand plans of getting things done, it pretty much went awry. The only thing I _did_ finish was getting the one side of my house painted. I didn't fix my car, I bought a new one. I got a total of 7 hours of riding over ten days. I had to spend a day shopping for, and installing a new pc, then probably a days worth of shopping/buying the car.

The rest of the time was spent painting. I got it done, but I seriously spent 6 days scraping, priming, and painting.

What did I do to compensate? I entered both the Salem Witches Cup and the Beverly Grand Pix. DNF'd both.

Same thing both nights. About 15 minutes in, I got wind cramps, way up in the diaphragm. This is a result of not training, and is pretty typical for me in very early season races. My HR for both nights show that I was above my AT for the whole time.

There was one bright spot to the time off though, I rode the bike leg for the Franconia Notch Triathlon, and got the 2nd fastest time in my age group. Unfortunately, the other team members were a coworker and his brother in-law. Don't get me wrong, they're good people and I like them. They just arent athletes.

The event is run differently than a standard tri - bike, swim, run. the bike is 6 miles, 3.5 paved, 2.5 on rocky rooty muddy uphill new england double-track, finishing on the paved walking trial up to cannon ski resort. The swim is 1/2 mile across Echo Lake, and the run.....well, isn't really a run unless you're a genetic freak. It's 2.5 miles up the ski slopes of cannon mountainfrom the base lodge to the very top. 2200' feet of climbing. I saw two guys running, the first two out of the water. Everyone else walked.

I came into the transition area in 5th place (3rd for the teams), then my swimmer came out in, ready for this? 30th, out of 70 teams, his time was 4th from last. Next up, the 'runner'.

Now, Jim was a nice guy, very friendly, but easily 50 pounds overweight. I waited at the transition zone (rode my bike around the lake) and had them drop a pair of sneakers for me. I figured I would go up with jim. I knew he wouldn't drop me, and I figured even if we pushed it I would at least get a good workout. Well, jim was waiting in a pair of merril hikers, cargo shorts, pearl izumi wicking shirt, and hiking poles.

We started off, and at first the pace was good, but not fast. My HR was at 80%.

We got passed by everyone. We passed _no_ one. My HR steadily dropped going up the hill. I was breathing normally by the half way point, and my HR dropped below 100 several times. Jims time was 3rd from last, netting us 47th place out of 70 teams.

Still, I enjoyed it. After the race we went back to their campground and ate lots of food and drank lots of beer. They are genuinely good people, and I'm glad to have met jim and done the race with them.

Well, this wasn't much of an entry, but I've had other things I need to deal with rather than blogging. Hopefully things will settle down and I'll get back to some sort of enjoyable routine of working/riding/writing.