Rocky Mountain High

Okay, not a huge John Denver fan, but the title is appropriate as I'm in Denver for the next few days. I flew out yesterday morning to visit my parents for a little vacation. Flight was nice, no problems, and United keeps putting me in economy plus seats, which is very nice, as I don't like having to suck my knees up into my chest. Flight was too short for an inflight movie, so I brought my own, "Empire Strikes Back" on DVD fresh from the newly released original Star Wars trilogy. ( Yep, I know I'm a geek, you don't have to tell me ).

I'm doing a tri on Sunday, the Fall Chill. I'm doing the Olympic distance, and hopefully just maybe, I might get one of the slots for the Escape from Alcatraz tri in San Francisco next summer. I flew with my bike ( I'd meant to ship it ahead, but work conspired to keep me from getting that done ahead of time, so I had to bring on the plane ).

Flying with a bike requires disassembling your bike, packing it into a special padded and hardsided box ( so it can't be destroyed by the throwers... I mean baggage handlers ). Wheels come off, seat comes off, handlebars come off, pedals come off. So, I had to reasseble the bike upon arrival. Did that yesterday afternoon, and then of course, need to test things out to make sure it's all adjusted properly, so I went on a short little 12 mile jaunt with my parents around the Cherry Creek Resevoir. I have to say, the bike trails around my house in Illinois are pretty scenic, but Denver has them beat hands down. Nothing fell off the bike during the ride, so it's safe to say that the reassembly went well.

Wore my HRM to see how the elevation would affect me. Turns out not much at all. Averaged 12 mph on the ride ( went slow for my parents sake ) and my HR averaged 108. Normally during a tri, that would be ~168. Getting up to around 20mph for a few stretches in the middle and HR only climbed to about 150. This is pretty dead flat terrain out here, just like the course will be for the race on Sunday, so I'm thinking this bodes well for having a good bike leg of the race. Hopefully a better run leg too, since there won't be any hills to brutalize me there either. The field is much smaller, so hopefully this means I can turn a better swim as well, since I won't have to play dodge the other swimmers as much.

In other news, today is my birthday, so I'm taking it easy, enjoying a day of rest sitting out in the sun and reading a book. Probably go for a bit of walk later, so I do *something* semi-active today, then out to dinner with my parents tonight. Other than that, nothing much special planned. Though I guess, as hectic as work has been lately, "nothing" *is* kinda special in it's own way. :)