Two Firsts

This weekend was an accomplishment.
I covered two new firsts in my training.
First, on Saturday, I swam 1.5 miles.
The furthest before that was 1.2 (at my HIM 4 years ago).
No not much further, but still...further.

Then on Sunday I rode the Lizard Under the Skillet bike ride.
The second of my firsts.
I rode 60 miles on the bike.
The furthest before that was 56 (at my HIM 4 years ago).
Not much further, but still...further.

The Lizard Under the Skillet was a lot of fun.
Two words to describe it. Hot and Hilly.
They even had spicy food at the sag stops.
I really only made one 'official' stop halfway through where I had some spicy pickles and a popsicle.

I do have to say the fun began *after* mile 14 where I had a breakdown. I think I just hadn't 'warmed up' yet, we had been through some big hills. I was riding by myself. My chain had just fallen off. And I needed to fuel. I called Doug. Crying. Upset that I hadn't even made it to mile 15 and I wanted to quit. He talked me down off the ledge, got me back on my bike and away I went. From that point, I was good to go and had a very enjoyable ride. It's so nice to have someone support you and give you what you need to keep truckin' on. Even if the fart was still in bed when I called crying.

At the last sag stop where I stopped long enough to grab some water, I noticed the jalapeno ice cream. I love me some jalapenos and adore ice cream. But I just couldn't do jalapeno ice cream. Maybe if it wasn't so hot and I still had several miles to travel.

The best part of the whole ride was the kick ass hill. And I mean hillll. Doug had mentioned it before when he rode the Lizard. He stated he got going so fast, the wind actually lifted him up off his seat. I didn't get going that fast, but it was scary and a blast all at the same time. I heard others talking how they got up to 45 mph down the hill. Now that was Good Times! And I didn't brake at all. Whoo Hoo!!

So, I've been looking at my schedule and I may actually may head to Iowa to do the Pigman Half Ironman in August. It is the home of my first (and only) HIM. It fits almost perfectly into my training for that week and think it would be great training. I still haven't signed up, but am seriously pondering the idea.

My nerves have settle from when I first signed up for Redman. My training is going pretty well. I'm not nearly as fast as I would like. And sometimes training is a real struggle and I wonder, yet again, why I'm doing this. But I always make it though and am so glad I've decided to give this a tri. I feel proud and a sense of accomplishment every time I go a little further and hit new firsts.