Unlike last year when my season got off to a slow start, my athletic endeavors have been going full swing all winter. My spouse decided that this is the year she wants do the Seattle-to-Portland (STP) bike ride, and I said, “well if you do it, I’ll do it too.” Yikes. What did I get myself into?
We started our pre-season of bicycling in February with the Cascade Bicycle Club’s free group rides and bike workshops. Then in April, the real season began with the Cascade Training Series (CTS). This is a series of group rides that progresses over the span of 12 weeks from a 26 mile Magnuson/Seward Park out-n-back to a 100 mile century ride in June. Carolyn and I have been riding in the Yellow 3 group (out of nine total groups of ~15 riders) which keeps a 12-14 mph pace on the flats and challenges me to keep up with more accomplished riders on the hills. This is all in preparation to ride the 200 miles from Seattle to Portland over two days in July.
The triathlon season is gearing up as well, although I won’t be doing any events until after STP. I’m signed up for my third year of doing the Iron Girl Seattle sprint triathlon in August. I hope to get in a couple more sprint triathlons, hopefully with a repeat of Bonney Lake, and maybe…possibly…an Olympic distance tri. We’ll see!
I love open water swimming and I’m looking forward to getting back in the lake with my wetsuit. I even signed up for a couple of open water swim lessons with Guila Muir. I’m finding that swimming is a comfortable cross-training activity to complement all of the intense biking.
I’ve been out running once since CTS began and found it too taxing to fit in with the rigors of long distance biking. I’ll get back to that when the biking gets less demanding. Until then, to keep my feet moving, I’ve resolved to walk anywhere in Ballard that is within 1.5 miles of my house…and take puppy for lots of walks.
