Back on the bike

It begins to dawn on me that I only have a bit over a month to prepare for the Sado Island Astroman Triathlon on September 3rd and that based on my current training I am absolutely doomed.  Cycling was my weakness at Japan Ironman, so what do I do to prepare for the next event?  I stop cycling completely (except for a few spin sessions).  Not only do I risk an even more embarrassingly slow cycling time - I risk being so exhausted after the ride that I lack leg strength on the run.

My most recent excuse for not riding, on top of risk of vehicular collision, rainy weather, hot weather, lack of 4-hour time blocks, lack of medical insurance.. (it is really remarkable how many excuses I dream up for not riding) is that my headset has been damaged - the ball bearings were crushed and the ring worn out.   Naturally I couldn't figure out what was wrong with my bike (I can barely figure out when I have a flat tire), but the surprising thing in this case is that the bicycle shop couldn't seem to figure it out either.   The bike shop had my bike for weeks and told me it was repaired when in fact it was not.  Naturally they were very apologetic when they finally fixed it last week and they did not charge me for any labor costs.   I was pretty relaxed about the whole matter - lets face it, I was lazy about riding anyway.

So finally this week, despite all my moaning in earlier blogs about my aversion to hot weather, and my concern that triathlon training is bad for my health, I push outside my comfort zone and get on my bike and ride 80 kilometers around Tokyo's 9-kilometer Oi-futo loop.  For awhile I felt pretty good - maintaining a speed over 30k per hour and keeping up with some of the packs of hardcore cyclists.  This  lasts for a couple hours before I begin to fade badly, and the ride home is misery.  Worse yet is how I feel on my long run later in the day.  My "long run" is about 14-kilometers.  I am aware that some people might not consider 14-kilometers to be a long run.  But for me right now 14-kilometres is much farther than most of my runs, and after the bike ride, the 14-kilometers seem to last forever.