Off-Track

Re-surfacing seems to be the flavor of the moment, 'round these parts. Many stretches of my favorite riding routes are torn up, being replaced with state favorite chip-seal, which is akin to riding over a cheese grater. On top of that (well, not literally, for I'm sure it'd be an improvement), the tracks at both schools are inaccessible, as both fields are being re-surfaced with artificial turf. Yea, that it'll conserve water; boo, in that it's eliminated my ability to run track on Thursday mornings. Instead, I've been running Liiiiiive Oak the past couple of weeks. This morning, I opted for the shorter route (out & back, as opposed to the full loop through Cibolo...which, incidentally, turns out to be just over half-a-mile longer but does keep me from having to cross 3009), and it was good.

The Polar kept me aware of where my ticker was ticking, so I was able to get close to gunning it for the whole 3.44 miles. Total time for the run was 24:35, which figured out to be a 7:08 mile. While not anything to really write home about, the only thing that really kept me from going longer was time -- I had to get my butt home, showered, and to work. Saturday's 5k is looking to be a pretty good workout for me, even if I have no hopes in winning it.

There's a new shop in town: Trisition Area. SA's first tri-specific shop (okay, there's Soler's, but that's in Helotes and is way too far for me to drive; Trisition is on the way to N---'s). I paid a visit to them and subsequently paid them some coin for some new racing shoes.

I've seen the Zoot running shoes making their rounds in Slowtwitch, the trade mags, and the like, but was curious to try a pair for myself. The sales folk said they weren't good for anything more than a half, but, as IMWI is over a year out, even if it turns out to be more than a pipe dream, I'll be due for new shoes before then, anyway. Besides, Trisition gave me the option of doing one run in them as a demo; Saturday's 5k should prove perfect.

This post is beginning to look mighty incoherent, so I think I'll take that as my cue to bugger off and go to bed. I've ~100 pages left in 1984, so I'll go work on that in order to drift off to sleep. I'll pop back in on Saturday for an update on how I faired in the 5k and the follow-up ride out to Sattler with D---. Hope you could make sense of what I wrote, but, in even if you couldn't, thanks for reading.