Mountain Goat Moments

Today is the first day of the 2009 Tour de France.

On an earlier post, I think I proclaimed the three weeks of March Madness "the best time of the year other than the three weeks leading up to Christmas when you're five" but I'm realizing that was a silly thing to say.

Welcome back, Lance. Come on in and stay awhile. I can't wait to have you and your 179 best friends inhabiting my imagination and my living room for the next 21 days.

I will get mushy about the Tour in a later post, perhaps when the peleton hits the Pyrenees. Today, I want to talk about my ride.

Relatively speaking, it was short (longer than the Tour's stage 1 time trial today, however!). For good luck I used the cool new water bottle that Jan brought me back from her stellar performance at Ironman 70.3 Boise.I rode 1:35, just from home to Juanita Beach and back. I felt slow but surprisingly steady on the hard 9-minute climb up Juanita Hill. As I passed a bunch of fairly fit looking GUYS, I was reminded why I love hills. I also am about 5 pounds lighter than my usual July weight (fat is lighter than muscle) and I felt the difference today.

My knee hurt a great deal until it warmed up, but then it started easing off. I couldn't fathom dismounting straight into a run, however. I think that's going to hurt, but I need to try it a few times before the Danskin in mid August.

I ran 3 miles on the treadmill on Thursday.

The pieces are coming together, but I'm still a little nervous about lining them up back to back. I've got 5 weeks. I am still deciding whether or not to withdraw from the Elite wave...that clear, first wave water is hard to resist, but I admit to feeling like a poser.

It's important to me to keep the Danskin streak going. This will be number 12. I will finish even if it means walking to the finish line and being the category cellar dweller. Or maybe I'll be great. My fastest Danskin is 1:08. I hope to beat 1:20 this year.