maiden voyage of the USS Armadillo

holy hell do those new tires add weight to my bike. my once featherweighted prissy roadbike now feels like a damned touring monster. and the steel/iron/lead in the behind-the-seat bottle holder adds an extra ton, even sans bottles. it was noticeably (ya think?) heavier carrying it down the stairs, and across the glassy/garbagey area (yeah, i'm puncture resistant now, but why tempt fate?), and even when first pedaling it up to speed. there's a noise coming from the front wheel (i think) which i must investigate. the shifting is definitely off thanks to my removal of the rear wheel.

work to be done.

now, i'm no weight weenie. as it says in The Bibble: look not at yon mote on yer frame, when there's a ginormous flapping beer gut spilling out of thine jersey, uh, ye. I think that was like Lance 7:24 or something. anyhow, to counteract all the extra weight, i've cultivated what I like to call a "training effect", whereby i pedal harder and longer week after week and get stronger, faster, better -- and all for slightly less than 6 million bucks!

i looked at a training plan for the TDPS century, and i plan to look at some more, but in all honesty, i may just stick with what i'm doing. it is clear that i have no exhausted the potential of my current routine, and it's even more clear that in the last week i've burst through some kinda training barrier. i may as well stick with my general routine for a little longer.

i was planning to integrate intervals into my schedule, but Ed Pavelka, bless him, gave me an out. He says, in one of my training books, that if I live near hills, why bother? why bother, indeed, I say. my fartlek method seems to be working. i'm grinding up hills in 1 gear higher than i was 2 weeks ago. and i'm faster on the flats, despite the added weight weenie weight of all the crap i keep throwing on my bike.

speaking of crap on the bike, i wanted to be extra paranoid and carry 2 tubes in my fanny pack, since the specialized website description of said fanny pack says it can hold two tubes. like hell it can. maybe if you forego tire levers and CO2. i could stick an extra tube and CO2 into my bento box, for extra un-roadiness. i think i'll just take the extras in my jerseys on my weekend rides. not for me: i'm puncture resistant. they're for charity, or something.

i dug out the screen for my protein shaker, and found that it was actually a screen for a different protein shaker, which i then also dug out. it actually works brilliantly -- no more chunky protein shake! yum.