HOD Tomorrow

Another Friday morning with cats and coffee and the Heart O' Dixie Triathlon is only a day away. Penny and I are spending the night with my aunt and uncle, and she is cooking supper for us. That's just one reason I still do this race. Both Mom and Dad were from Louisville, and many of my relatives still live there. When Uncle Teddy Bear was alive, we always stayed with him and we got to see Aunt Mary at his house. Now we stay with her and Uncle Paul in Noxapater, which is on the race course from Louisville to Philadelphia. At Philadelphia, we dismount our bikes and run to the world famous Neshoba County Fair and finish on the half-mile dirt horse track.

I'm not that fit, overall. My swim is good, but my running is poor, and my biking is only slightly better than last year which was as bad as it gets. I know some fat ladies will pass me on the bicycle, but if they try to go around me on the run, I'm gunna get physical. It will be a good workout and help me get ready for the Bikes, Blues, and Bayous ride next week.

Wednesday I did a transition workout that went something like this: squats, bike trainer ride, treadmill run for three rounds. It was brutal, but the idea is to be able to get off the bike and immediately hit a running stride at a decent pace. At the pool that night, we got thundered out although there was only a twenty percent chance of rain. In fact, it rained five inches in one hour. That is two days in a row we had a twenty percent chance of rain and got rained out. That reminds me of the time I took a boat trip after I graduated from Wesley Biblical Seminary in May of 1998. My graduation present to myself was a trip up the Tallahatchie River. I left early one morning in my homemade wooden boat with a small tent, a sleeping bag, twenty-six gallons of gasoline, some water and fried chicken. There was a twenty percent chance of rain for the day I left and it rained not five, not six, not seven, not eight but TEN inches that night. TEN inches!

Thursday John and I had clear skies and an empty pool at Twin Rivers. Brent showed up and we did something we almost never do. We did a couple of sets together. We did 100s on 1:57. I would not have been able to do but a few on my own, but together we knocked off ten of them. Then we did my 800 countdown set, as I call it. I finished with 3,000 meters and a 2.71 mile run earlier in the day.