IronMatron

Ange, Mary, Alina
just before our swim at Crystal Lake in Gray, Maine

The sun came out on Friday. Just in time. I was about to go totally and completely insane. It was cold on the beach, but I didn't care. I was just so happy to have the sun poke through the clouds. We had thirteen straight days of rain. Thirteen. And before that it was gloomy and cold.

Anyway! On Friday morning Alina and I got up very early and drove an hour to meet Ange at Crystal Lake. In MA Walden Pond is the mecca of OW swimming, but in Maine it's Crystal Lake. There were probably 25 people there to swim. The parking lot was packed.

Ange and Alina are about the same pace. That pace would be ummm--really, really fast. My plan was to follow them as best as I could until they were out of sight. They were really nice and waited for me every fifteen minutes or so until I caught up with them. By the end of each fifteen minutes I was usually a good three to four minutes behind them. Yep.

It was great to be in a lake as opposed to the Atlantic. I love ocean swimming, but because the weather has been so cold for the last month, the water is FREEZING. 55 degrees to be exact. That's really cold. Alina and I went swimming on Saturday and I swear I was minutes away form hypothermia. I couldn't feel my nose, feet or fingers by the end of our swim.

This morning I went on a five hour ride. Riding around here is about ten billion times easier than riding in suburban MA. The pavement is smooth, the shoulders wide, there are long stretches of road instead of the winding shit we have at home, and there are very few cars. In MA I feel as if I risk my life every time I go out. Between potholes, asshole drivers, and tons of traffic, riding is not that easy or fun.

I rode out to the Limerick, Cornish, Parsonfield area. I don't mean offense to anyone who might live in one of those towns, but WOW there is nothing fucking out there--just miles of farmland and forest and scrubalnd and rusty abandoned tractors, trailers and trucks. Cornish appears to be the metropolis of the three towns. It has a small grocery store, a Subway and a Dunkin Donuts.

On the way home, riding through Parsonsfield, I climbed a mountain on my bike. I didn't mean to. I had no idea that the route I had planned would take me straight up. When I got to the top of this mountain I snapped a few pictures. Acutally, it was very pretty. Of course, you will note the obligatory abaonded trailer...


When I got back from the ride I headed out on an 8 mile transition run. My plan was to stay zone 2 the whole time. This is the hr I will run at IM, and I wanted to simulate that.
The thing is, when I DO discipline myself to stay in zone 2 running is fantastic. It's effortless and easy, and just -- lovely. For the first time today I could actually fathom attempting to run a marathon following the bike.

Tomorrow I head back to MA for a week. Boo. But then it's back up to Maine for another week before I journey to Lake Placid.

Oh boy.
Oh boy!