Yanti & Salty Mad Manatees PART 3: FULL POD (Page 11)

What TJ said about the cables stretching.  When cables are new, they are tight and the shifting is set for that.  As they become less tight, the shifting needs to be adjusted.  Also, since you have been having icky weather, you could have gunk in your derailleur which is clogging up the shifting.  I think that Kate may have some expertise in the clogged shifting department

Pro Tip:  If you bike starts to shift by itself and your cables are old, that is a good sign to change cables ASAP.

Wait, you mean it's not an intelligent bike with automatic shifting capabilities???

Have you thought about nutrition on the bike?  You'll want to test that out on one of your last few long rides as well.   Think about things like:  What are you going to eat?  Can you open it and pedal at the same time?  Do you need to snip the packaging beforehand?  How are you going to carry it (in your pockets? in a bento box?)  What about bottle hand offs (you'll probably need at least one)?

Hey it looks like we have a couple of July 4 racers tomorrow!

Good luck to CLAIRE and JANYNE!!!!!!!!!

Hmmmm the RD for the marathon coming up just e-mailed and asked what bib number we want (it's a small marathon) 

I don't really have a favorite number I guess...any ideas? 

I think there are only 400 people so it can only be 1-400

That's the one thing I do feel ready for .  I am having lovely success with Perpetuem.  When I trained for my marathon, gels were working for me, but since then, my body has decided that they are evil and must be gotten rid of post-haste.  I have experimented a bit with some bars and they seem ok as well, so will likely take at least one of them as well. 

Time goal in hours and minutes?

Now, now, you know that I don't like to specify a number  but that is a good idea.

Thanks TJ!  I'm looking forward to the Firecracker 100k tomorrow.  It should be fun :-)

It's actually a BikeMS training ride and I plan to ride with my peeps from Team CBC.  You may be unaware that my BikeMS team is sponsored by a brewery!  It's a microbrew place.  One of the owners' wife has MS.

Number of beers you will drink the night before?

Oooooohhhhhh the "cool" people (read pro's) always have the small numbers. 1 would be awesome!

Did you call my name?

My fav numbers are those with the least amount of numbers in it.  Ex: 222 (or 22, or 2), or 333.  Next best is something like 242...  I once had a sail number (I used to race sailboats) whose # 181811 - it was coveted by other racers!!

It's too bad there aren't more participants or I could go all binary on their Azz: 

010001100101010101000011010010110000110100001010

Ha! You'd need a flag instead of a bib!

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!  I like that!!  Hidden cursing, kiddie safe!   Or is it an invitation?

Good luck Claire and Janyne!!  Mmmmmm, microbrews...

Do you want to know that the rides start and end at the brewery?  And that we perform quality control at the open taps in the warehouse?  We are nice, we don't charge them for our QC services.

Next time you are in the Raleigh, NC area, you know who to ride with!

Go get 'em manatees!

Nothin' would be finer than to be in Carolina at the Brewwwwwwwwwery!

I had mine done 3 weeks out gave me time to test it out.

Doing the distance - i didn't either, I did 75km instead of the 90km required.  The only issue is knowing that you have the extra 8km in your legs or not - make sure you've done a few brick sessions too.  My training was all about number of hours rather than distance - next one I'm going to make sure i cover the distance too....

Holy H*LL in a Handbag!!  In the middle of a deserted lake (with my newbie friend) and torrential downpour, complete with tons of lightning and scary booming thunder.  Not a soul around.  Thank God we had our wetsuits on (virtually impossible to drown).  Could not put head in water to swim because could not breathe when I tried.  The rain was pouring so hard it was hard to get any breath.   We finally made it out, kissed the ground, and the trail we walked out to get to secret lake was flooded.  We had to wade through mud to get back.

Managed to clear up as we got out so we still got 14 hilly miles in on the bike and then bailed on the run because the storms started just as we racked our bikes.  So happy to be home, eating a chicken schwarma sandwich and drinking ar really good Founder's KBS stout ale. 

We didn't die, so all is good.  Bring on the tri!!  (I may have panicked a little when we were holding each other up because we couldn't see each other with all the rain.  Bad news, my cell phone was with my towel in a dry bag and got soaked. So much for a waterproof bag in weather like that.  It is sitting in rice, hoping that it comes back to life. 

Good luck Claire and Janyne!!