Monday, May 30, 2011

Rollin'

Hi hi, Steph here (again). Happy Memorial Day! What's new with us?

Yesterday we went to the Indy 500 with Jaz, Mom, and Enrique. It was fun! My ears are still ringing (36 hours later), and as a "safety person," I'm kind of freaked out. Besides that, the race was a good time; JR Hildebrand, rookie, led the last few laps and almost won -- except he crashed into the wall at turn 4 to finish second to Dan Wheldon. The double-wide restarts made things very interesting. Here's a shot of the parade lap before the race, below. As usual, Florence Henderson sang "God Bless America" and Jim Nabors sang "Back Home In Indiana" (yes - Ben knows all of the words), along with the usual military jet flyover during the pre-race show. Since it was the 100th anniversary of the race, after the race they did another celebratory flyover with a Stealth Bomber. We had pretty good seats up in turn 3!


On the running front...
It's been a week since Run with the Foxes, and my ankle's still noticeably swollen. No running for the next week, again, probably. I've been riding 25 miles twice each week now, to sort-of make up for it. This morning, we went for a 30-mile ride in 80-something-high degree weather and high humidity, with the high for the day exceeding 90 degrees. It was August-in-Indiana miserable!! Unfortunately, I strained my ankle again when unsuccessfully unclipping from my bike today, nearly taking a fall on the road. There was a lot of icing and anti-inflammatory ibuprofen-popping that followed.

Ben's been doing really well relatively easing into triathlon training. He's been running at the IU XC course quite a bit, and will do that before/after a long ride of 50 miles some days. No injuries for him... just tired a lot! He's designed a few good ride courses lately too, including the Tour de Bloomington, a 25-mile loop around town that's relatively flat and stays within a reasonably close radius of Bloomington. On hot days, it's smart not to go too far in case anything happens while you're riding.

This morning, we rode part of the Hoosierman Triathlon (Olympic) bike course. I've only heard stories about it, but it is ridiculously hard! You end up riding up a pretty steep/long hill for some time as soon as you start the bike portion. This race is not for the faint of heart - you've officially been warned! :)

We're always looking for new people to join our riding group... in fact, we welcomed a new person today! Since we're runners, we're extremely laid back when it comes to riding - and I'm hoping to add more people so we can complete the spectrum of abilities (or inabilities in my case, haha). Comment or send me a message if you'd like to get the info on our weekly Saturday or Sunday morning rides. As usual, Ride-Run-Rides still exist on Wednesday evenings. For the most part, everyone's in the run group at the stores, and no one really has that typical got-something-to-prove cyclist mentality.

Other stuff that's going on...
I'm making some decent progress on house projects, being injured and all. Is that bad to say that I really enjoy this newly-discovered free time suddenly available? Ben's been reading up on all things triathlon. We're taking a trip to Sandusky in a few weeks to scope out the course, where I'll get to see my mom! I miss my mom, definitely, but I miss having my cat, Nikki, around too! (She constantly gets picked on by my sis's two 20-pound cats, poor kitty! I'll never understand why she walks around with her tail down all the time... she is such a funny slow-moving robo-kitty, but I love her to death)

Besides the upcoming mini-trip, June 1st -- this Wednesday -- is National Running Day! Go out and celebrate!! (and if you're in Bloomington, we're hosting a 6pm run at the Sample gates... free popsicles for all!)

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