Ok, I didn't fall. Now what?

I wish this damn thing came with training wheels.

Well, I got on the bike and have ridden it around the neighborhood for a few miles at a time.  I need a lot more practice, but at least I don't feel as intimidated.  Tomorrow, I plan to take it out for a longer ride - targeting 12.5 miles - from my house to a local greenway.  It involves going on streets with traffic to get to the greenway, but hopefully, it will be during a lower traffic time.

On thing I noticed on my ride today was that I sweat my ass off.  It was hot outside, sure, but this was EFFORT SWEAT.  I was barely going 7 miles an hour and at the gym, I go about 14.5 mph.  I don't get it.

This is what I look like on my tri bike.

One "win" (I guess) is that I am getting better at shifting.  I read about 50 articles and watched 20 YouTubes on shifting and it still took actual practice to figure it out. 

I am starting to have some serious doubts about this olympic triathlon in 5 weeks.  Is that enough time to get use to the bike and learn proper swimming?  My logical inner voice says HELL NO.  But some stupid part of me says I just need to try harder and things will fall into place.  Who do I listen to?


There is a sprint tri about 1.5 hours away 2 weeks before my oly and I was thinking of doing that for practice.  I need to find $65 not being used to feed my children to register, so it's a little iffy.  I have really blown the budget this month on the bike - plus all the things I needed to ride it!  Helmet, lady saddle, maintenance kit, new pedals, etc, etc, etc.  Triathlons are not the cheapest hobby.

Ok - just wanted to update the blog since the last entry was sad and measly.  I rode the bike and didn't fall.  Yay for forward progress!