amkean pronunciation

Also, I got a bike this summer. I rode it like a madman all summer and wondered why I hadn't had a good working bike in so long. One reason was that I was doing PCA work and you can't cart a PCA client around on a bike. And then I just got into that habit of driving and didn't think about how much I could be using a bike.

I had a class at the U and wondered exactly how I was going to park there. I thought I ought to take the bus, but bus service in the Cities is not awesome. Oh, wait. I'll just bike. I even did a practice run because I hadn't had my bike for long. I discovered that I could get to campus in less than 20 minutes, which is probably about the same time it would take to drive and less time than the bus.

I commuted every day to class and did some recreational rides, too. I haven't ridden to my job in Brooklyn Park or the training I had in Maple Grove. I don't want to spend 3 hours riding every day, and there's no buses that go to BP in the morning. When I tried to find a bike/bus combo on the metro transit site, they told me to leave Monday afternoon to get to school Tuesday morning.

I started bike shopping with only the vaguest idea of what I wanted, then I figured out with the help of friends that I wanted a single speed. At first, I was skeptical because only insane or intense bikers ride single speeds. Except then I remembered that I had a single speed when I was 8, and I wasn't a particularly intense cyclist back then. There's been only one time, on the hill next to the Walker Art Center open space, that I've had to get off and walk. Otherwise, I work hard on the few hills I do come across, and most of the biking in the Cities can be easy.

Labels: biking

I did the world's largest duathlon yesterday. The format was 5k run-18 mile bike-5k run. I'd never been in a bike race before outside of any informal heats on Winslow Avenue. There were some training days put on by Team Ortho leading up to the event and I attended one of them to get an idea of what the transitions would be like.

Besides seeing an example transition area during the training session, we ran-biked-ran. I biked the complete course in between my runs and found it enjoyable. During the actual race yesterday, I wondered if there was someone behind me holding a bungee cord attached to my back.

I didn't help that it was one of the windiest weekends we've had, or that my wave started at 9:30 when it was already feeling hot, or that I ran the second run after 11 in the morning when it was legitimately hot.

I'm glad I didn't bike to Eden Prairie the night before, which I was thinking about doing. I was still feeling the effects of Tuesday's run yesterday when I sprinted in my VFFs because a dog was sprinting attached to me.

The Team Ortho races are popular and fun, which means they fill up early and are expensive. The free stuff is better than any other races, and yesterday's race included a free beer at Brit's, where I was told they would have valets to take your bike. In reality, the Brit's parking garage was reserved for bikes and you just parked your own there while 15 year olds served as security at the door.

The one uh-oh moment happened when I was putting my bike on the transition rack. It's tricky because my bike is too tall to fit under without leaning it sideways. Some people made a comment about how my bike was too tall and then said I was in the wrong place. I don't know how they knew because I never cracked the code on the bibs. It must have been my wave number. Anyway, they told me my transition area had closed a long time ago. "That's crazy," I thought. "It can't be full." I asked a volunteer who confirmed this, but I remembered then that it wasn't closed because it was full, but because that's the scheduled closing time. When I had learned the day before that I would be starting at 9:30 instead of 8:30, I completely forgot about the transition area times. I was directed to a race official who took my bike into my transition area, and then I had to run back in being politely yelled at by volunteers because I forgot my helmet number. And then I still had to sit and wait.

Labels: biking, running