Holy Crap, It's 50 Degrees Outside!

Ah, I can't contain my excitement about the fantastic weather that has come to Pittsburgh.  Well, "fantastic weather" might be an overstatement.  You know it had to have been a crappy, long winter for 50 degrees to be warm.  And, it's still Pittsburgh, so it's not like the sun is actually out or anything.  But still, 50 felt warm enough to ride with nothing except an extra jersey layer and some light booties yesterday.  Once I actually started moving, I realized that factoring in the 25 mph speeds and the wind that comes along with it means it's not really 50 anymore.  So arm warmers might have been nice, but I didn't care; I was filled with glee. 

Today I had the pleasure of riding my fixie downtown to the Y to get in a swim.  It was the first time not taking the bus down there, so I was really interested to see what kind of time it would take to get the Y via bike as opposed to taking the bus.

The answer is:  close to a half an hour depending on traffic.  This compares pretty favorably with the bus for the following reasons.

1.  When taking the bus downtown, I have to:

a.  Walk to the busway (for those of you not in the know, the busway in Pittsburgh is an expressway devoted solely to buses that go downtown.  It's a fast, traffic-free way of doing it.  By far the speediest way of getting into town available.).  Time - about five minutes.

b.  Wait for the bus.  The Port Authority buses here are more well-known for not being on time than for being on time, so even if you plan out your trip with the schedule, you could still be waiting a little.  Time - about five minutes.

c.  Ride the bus.  It takes a very short time to get from my stop to the beginning of downtown - maybe five minutes - but the Y is on the far end of downtown, so I take the bus as far as it goes.  The means it gets into a little bit of traffic by the time it gets to my stop.  Time - maybe ten minutes.

d.  Walk to the Y.  Now, for those of you who have been here, you can back me up when I say that the downtown area of Pittsburgh isn't exactly big.  But it's still a good eight or ten blocks from the bus stop to the Y.  Time - another five minutes.

So already, we're at 25 minutes.  And I haven't even factored in the part where you have to schedule the trip to the Y based on the bus schedule.  Saturdays and Sundays, the buses are a lot more few and far between, so you often can't really leave when you want to.

There is then of course, the part where the circa six-mile bike ride there is exactly that; a six-mile bike ride.  Now, I realize that bike rides for me are usually 35-40 miles minimum, going up to around 80, but those miles to the Y add up if for no other reason than I'm doing them on my all-important fixed-gear bike, which, if you have been tuning into super-fun blogtime, you know does wonders for my biking and running.

Conclusion:  The bike is better.  As if we really needed to analyze the situation to know this :)  That is, of course, it's not pouring down rain or below 30 degrees.

I apologize for spending so much time on the happiness that commuting on a bike gives me, it's just that my swim this morning was terrible.

Right, I'm off for a run.

And I'm back.  That was fantastic for not having run in far too long.  Actually it was fantastic even if I had been running all day, everyday.  6:28/mile pace.  I don't know where that came from...fixie.

Well, until next time when I have something constructive to say, enjoy the weather!

P.S.  Yesterday at work, some German guy was ordering a burger with everything on it so he said (cue German accent), "Ze full monty."  I died.  

Can You Tell It's Winter?

I remember watching the triathlon at the Beijing Olympics this past year.  During the men's race, one of the commentators, who had won the ITU short distance (Olympic) world championships during her career, shed some light on what it was like getting started in a little-known sport where the pay is dismal for the average professional.  At the time she was trying to break through into the pro ranks, Australia was the place to be if you wanted to race against the best in the world, so she spent all the money she had to get herself and her bike over there.  Because she literally didn't have any money left, she said that she had actually looked around on the sidewalk for spare change so she could buy food to race and train on.

Likewise, a very seasoned professional named Bevan Docherty of New Zealand, asked for a loan from his parents to jump-start his career so he could just go race a lot.  It had obviously worked out for him because he ended up finishing third in the very Olympics that I was watching.

My point is that it seems as though most or all pros in the sport had to make some huge sacrifice to get where they are; to put everything else on hold and just go for it.  While I haven't done something as drastic as move to another country on a whim, I still can't help but feel as though I'm doing what I need to do to have a chance at getting a pro license.  The thing that nobody talks about is this:  For every success story that was made possible by a blind leap of faith, there must be scores of failures.  Looking into the future, whether it's a year from now or four years, I wonder how you are supposed to know whether to keep chasing what you are after, or to hang it up.  Sometimes when the outlook is grim and the thought of, "what am I doing this for?" pops up during the stale and endless laps in the pool or pedal strokes on the trainer, the only reason I keep going is the hope that I might have a story like the two at the beginning of this post.

But it's an especially dull feeling in the winter when there is no racing with which to measure progress and shaving a second or two from 100m repeats is the only sense of accomplishment.

Yes, training is going well and I have high hopes for the upcoming season, although it's frustrating after a few years to still worry about the same, basic questions of how will I get to this race or how will I pay for that race.  They aren't even important races that could get me where I want to go; those are either sold out already or too distant to even think about going to.  They are still the small-profile races that I can only go to because my friend might be going to the same one and I can hitch a ride or because it's a hundred miles or less away and I can drive there in a Zipcar.  At least the small ones are less expensive to do.

I'm pretty sure I'm just going stir-crazy though from having to do everything inside.  It needs to be warm again.  And soon.  

But not to worry!  Although this may sound like the rants of an angsty teenager complaining on LiveJournal about the unfortunate demise of a three-week old relationship, there are indeed some bright spots.

Pittsburgh was recently blessed with a near week-long streak of weather in the 40s and 50s.  I took the opportunity to get out on my bike for the first time since the final days of December.  Usually the first spring forays into the outdoors are bittersweet; simultaneously feeling the joys I would associate with just getting out of prison, and the stark realization of how much work has to be done on the bike to get back to racing shape - particularly regarding climbing.

But thanks to the wonders of commuting on my magical fixed-gear bike since November, I actually felt, dare I say...better?  It was just a 30-mile group ride, but when we found ourselves at the base of a climb, I felt like ten men.  Well, that may be a slight over-statement, but I think I may have felt better climbing than I did at the end of last season.  I could even ride away from people on flats pretty easily.  I was a little skeptical that maybe it was just a product of excitement, so I went out to the track two days later.  I suffered a flat that shortened my ride, but I once again felt like I was flying.  Not only did I feel this way, my speedometer backed me up!  It was a hard effort for being so early in the season, so when I went out the following day, I was definitely paying for it.  Throw in the very stiff winds that were blowing that day and I was officially humbled.  But I think this should maybe be a good year for the bike again.

I also continue my confusing-but-pleasant bare minimum of run training in which my mile splits are staying down lower than they were at the middle of the season last year.  Though, it's now dawning on me that I really need to get myself in gear if I'm going to hit up a few running races in March and April before the start of my triathlon season.

Swimming is swimming.  I've started throwing a lot of work with stretch cords into my routine and it seems to be helping.  Not really with my times so much, but definitely with my endurance, which had been so low since the beginning of winter.

So hopefully the sun will emerge here for more than five days and it will start to stay warm.  But until then, feel free to send me your new and used disc wheels.