Mountain Bikes, Bass Guitar, and other stuff I like

Started off this week with a mind-numbing crawl at Snake Creek Gap. See my previous post for gory details. Rested on Monday and Tuesday as I was pretty beat up after Snake Creek. Wednesday met up with Lisa Randall at White for the 35-mile loop.  Lisa is a great ride partner because she's not only fast but she is fast for a long time.  I felt like I had a rocket booster on my bike that day after 2 days rest and about 7 hours of sleep. My confidence on the road bike is creeping up too. More assured.  Every ride is a learning experience. Fantastic! Thursday swam with Lisa and Renee. Lisa offered some good pointers on freestyle technique. My swimming is slowly getting better. Just have to relax and iron out a few kinks in the stroke. Renee also discovered the joys of forward motion through water with the use of fins. She has never swam before! (She promptly ordered fins and a pull buoy and I think she is now hooked.) Friday back out at White on another fast ride. Felt tired in legs a

Yeppppp. Familiar Pinhoti sign Trying to capture the elevation gain. Doesn't do it justice. Looking up The Wall My bike is tired. Just had to go up there. Lots of hiking, insects, overgrowth. Took the geared bike so was able to spin more but trails were so washed out that it didn't matter.   Technical bike skills have fallen off so a few topples with various cuts,bruises,road rash.  Rode Snake much better last time but it is a much different experience in summer. Who woulda thought?  Seemingly found all the rocks on and around the trail and nearly all made my front tire come to a dead stop. Unreal!  Much more pleasant experience in the winter I must say. Entered some sort of time warp on the way back where I didn't realize where I was but then realized I was miles further down the trail than I thought. Bizarre day on the trails! Now it's time to nurse my wounds.

Felt a little shaky at the end of my 2 hour ride yesterday. Was bonked and tired. Needed to eat more. Haven't ridden in almost 2 weeks with run training and I could feel it. My BP was up after the ride and short of breath. Really strange. Not sleeping well past 2 nights although have reduced caffeine. Looking forward to a swim today and bike repairs.

6/19 - some tightness in chest. pulse very strong but waking BPM was 60!  caffeine seems to worsen chest tightness but could be mental. dialed back caffeine intake yesterday with just 3 cups of coffee in the AM and nothing else. will test cardio this morning with swim and/or strength training.

I was hospitalized over the weekend after having rapid pulse and tight chest and being unable to breathe deeply. This began toward the end of my 1st half-marathon at Rope Mill trails on Saturday.  I'm so used to coming right down to normal pulse and respiration after a hard effort that this really surprised me. I noticed it about 2 miles from the finish. I'm sure my heart rate was 170-180 and my breathing was labored. I was really tired. I had 1 bottle of water to last me the entire race. Dehydrated? I didn't feel dehydrated.  Once I finished the race my pulse was still racing and couldn't take a deep breath. This same thing happened last summer during a routine mountain bike ride. I wrote it off as a one-time event.  I found an EMT after the race and told him my symptoms. He called another EMT over and they immediately put me on oxygen.  They took my blood sugar. It was fine. No other symptoms such as nausea.  I did notice a very dull pain in my chest at one point when

5 years ago I decided to make a change in my life.  I was pushing 250 pounds and wore size 42 pants. I was extremely depressed and had little desire for anything.  A black cloud hung over me.   Also, I was pre-diabetic.   If one ever finds himself doing blood-tests to check glucose levels, something is wrong. That would be your wake up call! I remember getting on a basketball court and how my knees and back hurt and how slow I felt.  The agility was gone and certainly the endurance.  I was a shadow of my former athletic self.  10 years before I was a pretty good basketball player  How could this happen ? Slowly and surely, that's how. Bicycling was on the periphery of my life a few years before that, around 2004 or 2005.  Casual rides around the neighborhood or on the Silver Comet Trail happened without much thought.  I remembered what it was like to have fun with exercise and feel like a kid again.  I always had a blast with bikes when I was a kid, as do most kids.  Riding aroun

Up at 5:30 this morning after relatively good sleep last night, maybe 6 or 7 hours total.   Weather was a question with thunderstorms predicted. Yesterday I was extremely anxious and preoccupied with the race. Fear of the unknown is tough.  I knew I would be ok with the bike and run portions of the race but the swim I was concerned about. I hadn't done any open water swimming since last year.  In February, when I first learned of this triathlon, I vowed to get swim lessons and go to Masters classes at 5 in the morning to get better. That never happened.  I also wanted to get in some open water swims in Lake Allatoona before the race but that never happened. So I figured I would fake my way through the swim after having done several sessions down at our neighborhood pool in the preceding 3 weeks.  I had swam 6 lengths in our pool which was about 200 yards (length of the tri swim) without much trouble. Welllll , this was really no preparation for the open water swimming. We started