Forty-seven kilometers into my long bike ride, my right pedal broke. I have speedplay pedals and the footpad seized. No longer spinning, it was causing the pedal to unscrew from the crank and fall off. I'd screw it back in, ride 2 minutes and it'd be off again. I had no choice but to call Alice to pick me up. I was 47 km north of our house and Alice doesn't know the area.
It was a "Marco Polo" pick up. I'd tell her to get to one point, then call my cell and I'd give her the next set of directions. It took a few calls for her to find me. While she was on her way, I started cycling towards her with my left foot. I ended up riding 10 km on one foot, climbing up some pretty steep hills.
It was a good news, bad news ride. The good news is my pedal broke, the bad news is I had to cut my long ride short in great weather. The reason I say the pedal breaking is great news is because I'd rather have it happen on a training ride than at IMSG. If it happened during the race, my day would have been over and I would have been devastated.
Come to think of it, I've had some pretty bad luck during my last three races. In Muskoka I forgot to put on my timing chip, in Clearwater my chain broke and in China my front tire flatted twice and I got food poisoning beforehand. It would sure be nice for IMSG to be a trouble free race.
You'd think for all the money us triathletes spend on high priced gear, nothing would go wrong. That's the irony. The "cheap" bikes I've bought over the years have never had a problem. Even my 25 year old "Dave Scott" Centurion bike has only been in the shop for spring tune-ups. Both of my high priced carbon fibre triathlon bikes have had ongoing and expensive mechanical issues.
When I got home, I decided to do a long run. Why not? I planned on spending 5 hours on the bike and it got cut short, so I had the time. For this run, I put on my old shoes. I thought my current shoes may be worn out, they have 700 kms on them and thought that might be the cause of my Achilles problems. Wrong.
The old shoes were just as bad, if not worse. I started running and after two minutes my Achilles was hurting and I had to stop and walk back home. The strange part is that my Achilles problem started with my left foot, then moved to my right foot and now it's back to my left. It's got to be some sort of alignment problem.
This morning my scale gave me some bad news. I hit 184.2 lbs. Ugh, I thought yesterday was the high limit. That means I've gained 7 lbs since returning from China. In all fairness, I left to China at about 181-182 lbs. I was telling Alice my terrible weight gain news at the breakfast table, like she cares to hear it, when Reid gave me a shot and said, "I thought you looked like your gaining weight".
Like I said yesterday, my primary training motivation is to keep my weight down. I was looking forward to today's high calorie burn ride. Today was also the first day that I've eaten 100% clean food and my body can tell. When I start eating clean, all I want to do is nap. I think its my body wanting to be spend all its energy on detoxing all the "crap" out of my system.
Today was also Reid's swim club tryout. We met the self-proclaimed "old school" coach on deck. He took one look at Reid and said, "what have you been eating? Looking at you, your probably have 45% body fat. If you join this club, that needs to come down. Now hop in the pool and lets see what you can do".
It took a total of about 90 seconds of pool time. He then talked with Reid and I. He explained that Reid needs lots of work and he needs to get fit. That this club is ranked number one in Ontario and number five in Canada and the training is intense. One team member even swam for Canada at the Beijing Olympics.
He wanted Reid to think "hard" about whether or not he wanted to do this for three months because it won't be easy. If Reid goes for it, he'd have to swim at least two times a week, dry-land train three days a week and run on his own three times a week for at least 20 minutes, and eat NO BREAD, NO BUTTER AND NO SUGAR.
Reid committed right away, but the coach wanted him to go home and "think about it" and then have me email him if Reid was 100% sure he could do it. The entire ride home Reid told me he was in and I emailed the coach, "it's a go".
Later tonight, Reid was second guessing, wondering if there was something else he could do for the $1000. I told him, "too late, you've committed, I wouldn't bet you $1000 if it was going to be easy". I'm loving it already, the torture, er, I mean character building has already begun. This is going to be worth every penny.
Long Bike - 1:38:10 / 47.68 km / 29.14 kph
Bike 1 leg - approx. 30 minutes / 10 km
184.2 lbs / 22.8 BMI
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8 comments:
Good on ya Reid, give it all you've got buddy. It'll be nice to see your dad paying you that grand. He'll be spitting bricks but he's gonna be the proudest dad in the world, traust me that's a given.
Man, Reid's stroke looks pretty solid.
Too bad about the pedal, but as you say better now than at the Ironman. Later, Bob.
Glad you are having issues now with your gear... get it figured out! Sorry bout the achilles KEEP ICING AND STRETCHING!
Reid, GO GET EM! $1k in your bank account buddy!
Good news pedal breakdown in training not the IM...great re-cap on Reid and his decision and second guessing, and you not backing down...Hopefully I can learn from that and as a parent be able to do the same when the kids are older!
-Derek
An old friend of mine broke his pedal sprinting through a yellow light. He slammed his foot so hard on the ground he threw himself over the bars. When he woke up, cars were driving around him. Glad you faired much better.
As for Reid, you know you'll never, EVER hear the end of it when he wins that $1k....
Way to go Reid! be careful, fat guys tend to tunr into triathletes! he is young and seesm to have no problem taking on a challenge, he could give you a run for your money one day! Take care of your feet, go and get aligned before you do more damage! Stay healthy, youir redemption race is coming up! Cheers
it's funny how a negative turns into a positive. Pretty unlikely that you have another "pedal failure" until post race. be cool with the achilles issue and be hard on Reid, man, it's one grand! ha ha ha
S, I've passed that on to Reid....thanks....it's just making him stronger.
M, thanks and Reid's taking these comments to heart, like he has a cheering section
D, thanks. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm not sure if you want to follow my parenting style. I may cost your kids lots of money for therapy. haha.
C, now I feel really lucky. I know, I did tell Reid if he didn't make the money, HE'D never hear the end of it.
J, thanks. I hope your right about Reid, I'd love to have him kick my A$$. It would be all good to me. Although, I wouldn't make it easy. haha.
V, thanks. Just trying to be careful so that race day it's in once piece. One mission: FINISH. For sure I'm going to be "Sergant Hulka" on Reid if he starts whinning. haha.
B
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