Speed Wobble

Summer has finally arrived as it has been smoking hot on the weekend.  Last week was a recovery week from the Peterborough Half Agua\Bike.  I went to the sports doctor to check out why my left foot had swollen so much after the race that I could barely walk.  Dr Stoddard suggested my foot has widen (as in got fatter?) and the riding shoes I've been using the last three years are too narrow.  Okay.  He suggested I get the shoes widen by a shoe store.  We also chatted about the Peterborough race which he did as well.  I talked to him a lot about nutrition and cramping as he is a sports doctor and the inventor of e-load and a fellow triathlete as well.  Bottom line, for Peterborough, given how hot it was, I just simply went too low on sodium and water.  If the race was another 15-20 km, I would have bonked.  After I talked to coach about widening my riding shoes and he suggested I wear riding socks instead of running socks which are a little thicker.  Once the shoe is widen, there is no going back so I'll try riding socks first but I really really have to figure out this nutrition as on several races I started to cramp up badly.

On Thursday, I did a short 30 minute test run to see how my leg felt and it felt GREAT!!  I couldn't believe what a difference another 1 1/2 weeks made!!  The last time I ran, my leg felt stiff and not flexible as I shuffled along but on Thursday it almost felt normal.  I ran 5 minutes and walked one minute and was pretty happy.  After the run, I jumped in my car and drove to the pool and swam 2000 meters.  My swimming buddy was away so it was a pretty boring swim plus it was a little more challenging after the run.  So the plan is to run twice a week and slowly ramp up the run by increasing the time by five minutes per week.  On that note, I asked coach again about racing Cobourg Olympic distance on Aug 13th for a nice tune up for Muskoka 70.3 but coach said forget it as I probably hammer it on the run.  I didn't respond to his statement, nuff said as  yea I would have hammered the 10 km run.  Nothing to gain by racing Cobourg.

Saturday's ride was only two hours as there was no one around to ride with.  Everyone was away on holidays so I rode by myself.  I did the good old route of going up Kennedy Road north of Aurora Road to the Twin Hills and did four hill repeats on the twin hills before heading home.  A pretty uneventful boring ride.

Today's ride, on the other hand was interesting.  I waffled about riding outside as the forecast called for 60% chance of thunderstorms and something about riding a bike outside during lightening strikes.  I headed out at 5:15 am and took the chance.  I was dehydrated from the previous day of being at a picnic and it was smoking hot.  I drank half a bottle before I got three kilometers so I swung by Angus Glen community center which is always open and refilled one of my bottles.  It was really humid and windy.  Riding north into the 30 km\hr wind was tough and I was glad to have aero bars as it made a huge difference.  I reached the turn around point and headed east (perpendicular to the wind) and was almost blown off the bike by the 45 km\hr gusts of wind.  It was quite scary as three times the front wheel lifted up and moved a couple of inches to the right.  If I was riding with Zipp wheels I would have ended up into the farmer's field.  I headed down south with the wind at my back and hammered it down my favorite hill.  I didn't bother going into the aero position as I hit 65 km\hr.  I made it home in record time.  What a difference the wind makes.  I wonder what coach will say when he looks at the Power Tap file?

Oh yea, after a birthday party on Saturday and a family picnic on Sunday, I managed to gain five pounds in two days.