A two-fer

On Saturday I tried out my new bike and logged in an hour at the pool. A bit ambitious...yes...but that's how I roll. The bum hip seems to be ok in the water and on the bike.

Let's start with the bike. She sure is pretty. After getting her into the car, I took the sound advice of the Bike Shop Dude and went over to UMD and found a nice big set of parking lots to rolling around it. What a great idea. I was able to get used to the bike in a relatively safe environment and practice clipping/unclipping into the pedals.

Re clipping/unclipping. My left foot is super easy. I could do it all day long. The right foot is another story. Not sure what the deal is, but it was really hard to clip in. I was literally jamming my foot down and at times it still wasn't going in. Mark said he'd help analyze the situation to determine if there is an issue or I'm just an idiot.

Even with the pedal issue, I still was able to ride around in these huge circles for awhile, took her for a spin around campus and attacked a few hills. That was super fun. She feels fast on the down hills. Of course...just like skiing my inclination is to hit the breaks out of sheer fear vs just letting go. That'll take some getting used to... controlled speed.

Now...on to the swimming. My training log said that it was a swim day so I got ready to log some laps. Unfortunately, my regular pool was closed for a swim meet so it took some time to find another pool that was open and available for lap swim. I finally settled on my old (very old) stomping grounds --- MLK. This is the pool I used to winter swim at back in jr high/high school a few days a week before class. Those were the days. Riding to school smelling like chlorine. I guess 20 yrs can have a profoundly poor effect on a building. The facility looked old and to top it off there were some really slow folks swimming laps. I had the unfortunate task of picking a lane and knowing that within a few laps the person was gonna get frustrated and have to move. Sorry dude...you shouldn't be in this lane anyway. Shift over.

...and that's how I spent Saturday.