Jim Thorpe

First off, Heather kicked ass! She placed second in her age group at the Anthracite Olympic Distance Triathlon. She was one of the fastest in the water, male or female. On the bike, even with a horrible lack of experience and an extremely challenging course consisting of 3 long climbs she did well. And of course had a decent run to wrap things up. Final time 2:55. It was great to see her nervousness building up to the race dissolve in a great performance. Go Heather.

I took my mountain bike up there to take advantage of the Jim Thorpe mountain biking scene, which I've heard is one of the best in the area. I stopped in a local bike shop to hopefully get a little guidance. I found out after the fact, from a local rider, that the shop I stopped in really sucks and I would have been better off checking the Internet. In any case, the shop did give me a couple routes to try and with map in hand I set off on a sunny and hot Saturday morning to try it out.

Things started off with a climb and then moved onto a climb. From there I climbed to a climb. After 30 minutes I finally made it to the top of this mountain/hill all the while still on roads, there hasn't been a bit of off road to this point. I finally jumped on some trails and with the help of my quickly sweat covered, and tattering directions found some halfway decent runs. This included a very steep 0.5 miles on a rocky downhill that the woman at the shop had extolled as one of the best in the country but in reality was to challenging for me to enjoy.

Overall, a good ride that lasted nearly 2 hours. There was no running on Saturday.

On Sunday, I didn't run until 7:15 pm trying to beat the heat. It sort of worked. A 9+ mile trip through the Wissahickon. The first couple miles were a little rough, my legs were reminding me of the hard bike ride from the day before. Eventually things loosened up and the remainder of the run went well.

The week:

Mon - 10 easy 1:20
Tues - 4.5 easy miles with the dog. 35 minutes
Wed - 8 miles with 4 at tempo avg 6:13 pace.
Thurs - 70 minute hard bike ride
Fri - 14 miles easy 1:52
Sat - 1:45 hard bike ride
Sun - 10 miles of biking in the morning. 9.2 miles of running in the evening 1:12

Only 46 running miles for the week but my goal was only 56. With the bike rides I am calling it even.