Good news coming in droves

Looking at Timberman from a realistic standpoint, it comes down to having a good swim and a good bike, so the last couple of weeks I'm going to focus on swimming and riding with only a couple runs between now and race day. I figure I'm going to be walking most of the run distance anyways, which I am already prepared to do. I'm not saying I'm  packing it in once I'm done with the ride, I just feel like the smart thing to do is use my remaining training to get a little edge in the areas I can do the most good. 

Yesterday it was freaking hot, so I didn't get out until around 7, and with darkness coming sooner and sooner I only had about an hour to ride. To make the most of it, I headed over to the nearby overpass to do some climbing. The overpass isn't a terribly hard climb, but it is close to a busy intersection, so I moved on to the next overpass. That's when I remembered the bike bridge attached to it. Both the overpass and the bike bridge pass over a train line, and give a good bit of climbing for about 100 or so feet, some of it being fairly steep for short sections.

I can't say that I have any idea about the slope, or the actual distances. But both sides of the overpass and the long side of the bike bridge are steep enough that I was in my second lowest gear and as I tired after multiple repetitions, the lowest gear as I climbed these slopes. It was fun to use this hill just a short ride from home as a training ground, and I managed about 3 miles of climbing before heading back due to oncoming darkness.

In total I did only about 10 miles, but was pretty happy with the ride and very happy with the climb. 

The other bit of good news comes from the fact that we didn't get the course right on the first or second pass of the ride last weekend up on the Timberman course. While it might seem like bad news, it's actually good news because the climbs we thought were the real course were more numerous than the climbs of the real course. It seems Rachelle doesn't know the difference between the letters A and B, which with this course makes a huge difference. 

11A is on the far side of the park and leads almost immediately to multiple steep climbs. 11B is on the near side of the park and has 5 fairly easy miles of warm up riding before you get onto 11B and start climbing. We're up in the air about going back up this weekend, but we know from the course elevation map that what we'll see on race day can't be any harder than what we went up against last weekend. 

I'm starting to get really excited about this race and can't wait to get up there and get at it!

Notes:

- We got more race details and rules last night but still haven't learned our bib numbers or swim wave starts. The email seemed to indicate that we'd have bib numbers in a few days once they hear back from folks who signed up but now can't start for various reasons. 

- Rach's knee has been bothering her for a few days. She's had to dial back the past few days and it's killing her to not be running. I told her better safe than sorry and she's ready even without going full out right now. Hopefully the rest will make her feel better.