Uh...Houston, we have a problem...

Hope all of you had a great weekend,

There are about three paragrahs of random rantings, and then there is my actual topic for my blog. So if you want to skip, then scroll down to the paragraph in bold lettering. I just got done checking out all of the Tri Blogs I read on a daily basis (that number seems to be growing). It seems that everyone had a great weekend, except maybe a few (Iron Wil, sorry about the storm, hail is not fun at all). Kudos to Meagan, she is representing her age group AND country for WORLDS!!! Did any of you get to see the Lifetime Fitness Triathlon (taped event) on Saturday. Although we all already knew the results, it was nice to see it on TV for a change. I wish they would make it 1 hour longer though, and have some more film of some of the other athletes.

STATUS UPDATE ON SHOULDER: My trap in still in pain, although not as bad as friday night/saturday morning. Where it is located in the muscle, it kind of shoots up the side of my neck when I move it in certain directions. I went to the gym yesterday, and sat in the hot tub up to my neck for about 15 minutes. It helped a bit, but other than that, I am on Ibuprofen to help the pain/inflammation.

Saturday: This one really pisses me off, due to the fact that I was highly motivated for some reason on that day.

SWIM
(none)

BIKE
(none)

RUN
(none)

WORKOUT
(none)

So you can plainly see why I was not happy with Saturday. I spent a good majority of the day with my sister, who I don't see too often (even though we are roommates). I also stopped by All3Sports. I picked up a rear bottle cage setup, along with some Gatorade Endurance and some GU. Please note: "Make sure when you buy parts to add to your bike, that the parts are compatible with one another. I bought an xlab rear setup, with profile deisgn bottle cages. It looks really, really good, but I had to jury rig the hell out of it.

NOW TO MY PROBLEM!!!
So, those of you who have read my posts have seen that I ride on a trail on the weekends called the Silver Comet Trail in Georgia. It is around 60 miles long, and goes from Smyrna (NW Atlanta) to the Alabama state line. It used to be railroad tracks, and they finally converted it in the late 90's I believe. There are mile markers every so often on the trail, and they were the original ones put out there. Now, technology has improved greatly in recent years with more accurate GPS, etc, so that when measuring distances, they are more accurate.

I went out to do my "race" brick yesterday (12.5 mile ride, ~5k run). On my other posts I have been talking about how on my Tuesday night ride I have been improving on my times. That ride has a couple thousand feet of total elevation change. The Silver Comet trail has maybe a 100 feet total, if that for the distance I did on Sunday. Yet here are my times;

BIKE
12.5 miles in 39min 13 seconds

TRANSITION
1min 30 sec (I fuged it a bit, since I had to actually lock up my bike and take stuff in/out of the car. I am 99 percent sure I can complete T2 in 1:30 or less. C'mon it is taking off helmet, racking the bike, and putting on shoes (with the quick ties).

RUN
~5k in 25:03:56 (I think I got the whole distance, it is hard to keep track since the nearest mile marker is 1.2mi so I have go gauge it)

TOTAL
1:05:03:56

So, adding roughly 8 min swim and 2 min T1 puts me at ~1:15:00:00. This is 9 minutes faster than last year, and puts me in the top 10, but not on the podium. I WANT THE PODIUM!

PROBLEM is that I don't know if the Silver Comet Trail distances are correct. I know two weekends ago when I went out with the four of us (Kevin, Jackie, Kelly, and myself) we went what I thought was 10-10.5 miles, and Kevin's polar sensor stated that we had gone over 11 miles. I know that the polar monitor is not a ten thousand dollar piece of measuring equipment, but I feel that it is more accurate than what was used to mark off the mileage on the Silver Comet Trail when it was built. I seem to be breaking time records on all my other rides, but I cannot budge on my Silver Comet Trail Rides, WHICH ARE FLAT!!!

Case in point: On my bike, am I riding 12.5 miles, or more(less)? I think it is more, since there are parts where you will see signs stating you have gone half a mile, and it feels less, and vice versa. Example, When I get to the 5.2 and 5.4 mile markers, the previous mile seems really short, and that includes stopping to cross over two highways. from Mile 5.2 to 6.2 (I turn around just after passing the 6.2 mile sign), feels twice as long as the previous mile, and what makes it worse is that I am going on a slight downhill (makes my speed go from 19 to about 22-23 mph).

I NEED TO GET A BIKE COMPUTER, or just break down and get my Polar/Garmin!!! I might just get a bike computer in the interim, since I do not want to charge anything to my creidt cards if I can help it, and I would have to do that if I purchased the either of those HRMs listed above. Whatever I do, I need to do it soon, to see what in the hell the problem is. How can I improve on times where there are diffucult hills and such, but get out on a very very flat course and not improve upon my time?

Something is not right...

I was happy with the run though... Only 2 minutes slower than what I was doing on run days only.

I will have another post tonight posing an interesting question which needs feedback from all of you...

Murtha...