Oh Happy Day!!! I'm back to being a two-bike person. Well, the day I've been waiting for has finally arrived . . . . my new Colnago road bike frame finally arrived and the bike has been built up. I went over to Austin Bike Shop yesterday to pick it up and get a professional fit on the bike to make sure it was set just right for me. Austin Bike Shop is a relatively new place not far from my office. Sol and Eric, the two guys that fit me on the bike were great. I'm probably going to see them about most stuff concerning my road bike from now on.

Anyhoo, here's a picture of the bike that I took quickly at home yesterday before I headed out for my Wednesday swim workout (discussed below):

The picture may be a little small, but trust me, the bike looks VERY sweet! Oddly, I didn't even know that my water bottle would match the blue on the bike frame. It just worked out that way! I guess it was just fate! Oh, sorry about the cat that horned in on the picture. That's Abby. She was very curious about the bike from the minute I brought it in the house. I almost couldn't get her out from behind the front wheel. She wanted to sniff the bike all over. Well, anyway . . . on with the training update.

Tuesday, March 13

This was an unintentional off day. I had to be in Houston for a deposition in the morning. My flight home was set to arrive in Austin at 5:00 PM. Unfortunately, the weather in Austin on Tuesday was AWFUL. It rained hard all day and the thunder and lightning was apparently pretty constant. The long and short of it was that my flight didn't leave Houston until almost 6:30 PM. We arrived in Austin at about 7:20 PM, and then I had to drive back to Leander, so I didn't actually get home until a little after 8:00 PM.

At least Reese and AJ didn't have to spend 16 hours with no potty break. Lisa's dad stopped by around noon to give the boys a potty break for me. (Thanks so much for that, Chuck!!) Since I got started with the day at 4:30 AM, and since the boys needed some attention after being left alone so long, I decided not to do the run I'd been planning. That was probably a good plan, because I was beat when I got home. Traveling just does that to me.

Wednesday, March 14

Yesterday was entirely different. I got a good night's sleep and was pretty jazzed up since I'd be getting the Colnago that day. I must admit, when I got the bike and got home, I didn't want to go back out and do the swim class. I wanted to stay home and play with my bike. But, I did begrudgingly go to the swim workout. Here's what we did:

Warm-up:
Easy 300, every 4th 25 was swum with head up (like Tarzan swims).

Main Workout:
6 x 50 kick (25 hard, 25 easy)
6 x 150 hard, working on drafting the feet of the person in front of you
6 x 25 hard on a 45-second interval
4 x 50 (25 hard with no breaths, 25 easy) on a 30-second rest interval

Warm down:
Easy 500 pull, alternating breathing every 3, 5, and 7 strokes each 50.

It was not TOO hard of a workout, and I'm very glad I went.

Thursday, March 15

What an awesome day today was! I got my first ride in on the new road bike at lunch and it was incredible! After spending 6 months on the tri bike exclusively, it was hard to get back into the groove of handling the Colnago. The handlebars felt too light, but I know that's a good thing! I had a little trouble shifting and finding the correct gearing, too. The Colnago is outfitted with Campagnolo Chorus components, which use thumb-shifters for some of the shifting. Previously, I'd only ridden with Shimano components and my Ultegras did not use thumb-shifters. Anyway . . . I did manage to figure it out!

As for the gearing, I'm using my first 11-23 rear cassette, which is generally harder gearing than the standard 12-25 cassette I've always used before. My theory is that I'd use the Colnago and its 11-23 cassette to help strengthen my legs on the hills so that when I actually ride IMMoo on the tri bike, I'll be able to use my regular gearing and not have my legs get too trashed. Maybe that will work and maybe not, but it's the theory. Anyhoo . . . with the harder gearing on the the Colnago, it was an adventure finding the right gears to be on when going up hills. The ones I usually use on the 12-25 aren't in the same place on the 11-23, so I had to adjust my riding until I could find the right combinations for me.

In any event, once I found them, it was off to the races! I rode down Bee Caves Road on the way back to the bike shop and averaged 32 mph on the stretch between Hwy 360 and MoPac! I usually average about 25-26 mph there! It was a sweet, sweet ride.

Oh yeah . . . in the evening, we had a Texas Iron run workout. Not much to say. Warm-up run from Jack & Adams' Bicycles over to the track at Austin High School. Then, we ran 8 x 800 m doing the first 400 at 10k pace, the next 200 at 5k pace, and the last 200 as recovery. Then, we did a warm down run back to J&A's and that was it! Great work out day!