Running Without Music Swim, Bike, RUN, Eat, Travel, Repeat...

This morning we were back at Griffith Park, where we were to do the infamous “Grand Prix”, which meant a triple mini-brick. What? Yes, a bike-run 3x. Loops on the bike, out and backs on the run. In between bike rides, the staffers who stayed back had to deflate tires for participants and staff, for all to force-learn how to change their tires. Even worse, they were back-flats, the more tedious of the two because of the chain and drivetrain.

My Garmin wasn’t cooperating with me so I don’t know my exact stats, but for the first 2 bike loops we had to climb a pretty considerable hill twice, then on the last loop we were to do that same hill three times. On one of the descents of the first hill, a crazy driver decided to make a U-turn on a rather narrow road near a blind curve and almost had a teammate crash into her! Some people! My teammate Tushar had to act quickly, brake, was fishtailing, but luckily he avoided what would’ve been a nasty crash! The final loop with the 3 hill repeats were tough, but was manageable. It looked like everyone finished strong, and it’s inspiring to see everyone on the team keep working at it!

It was the 2nd bike practice of the season, and we met at the LA Zoo Parking Lot C over in Griffith Park. We initially started with a warm up through the park, then some cadence drills to follow (low gear, high cadence, left leg, right leg). For those who didn’t have a bike, they did a quick run around the area. After our bike drills, we did loops surrounding the park, all focusing on technique, not speed. At one point on the course, a chark marking called for 100 rpm on until the turnaround. Once we get back to the parking lot, it was drills again, then repeat. I was able to do 2 loops with the drills (super fast people did 3), but overall it was a fun practice, TNT IronTEAM and Tri teams combined.

After practice, we met up at House Restaurant over in Echo Park, where about 30+ teammates took over a good portion of the room. It was awesome because I got to know some of Tri teammates who I probably normally wouldn’t meet outside the team, especially once we split off into our own groups later.