Happy 4th weekend

This weekend was great. I'm still recovering a couple days after the 4th holiday. I had a buddy in town who you used to live here from California, Kelly Pasco, we had a few good adventures on the bike, along with assorted celebrations with other friends and libations every night, and a duathlon thrown in for good measure.

JT, Kelly and I went out on Saturday morning. JT had to get back for his son's birthday party so left us about Elmwood...Kelly has never been one to back down from a good ride, so with the prevalent NE wind we made use of the Mo-Pac trail and boogied out to Wabash. We were making good time on the ride when Kelly pinch flatted on the Gravel over to South Bend. We got the tube changed and discovered my pump, the only pump between us was working minimally well. We got the tube pumped up, but must have managed to tear the tube at the valve stem. Crap. We used my tube and tried to patch the snake bitten tube as a back up. We got maybe 60-70lbs of air in his tire and started rolling down to South Bend to cross the Platte River pedestrian bridge.


The Bridge itself is a nice piece of work, and it neighbors a couple sand pit lakes down by South Bend. These sand pits are nice lakes and have people living at least part time on them. So we we nt into Middle Island area and found a guy that was there for the weekend. We borrowed some WD40 and lubed my pump and managed to get about 100 psi in Kelly's tire. Whew. Always an adventrue with Kelly. We have a few stories of wrong turns made into epic rides.

We crossed the Bridge and as we came out on Hwy 31 otherwise known as the River Road, a group of cyclists were rolling by..."hey, you guys have a tube we can buy?" Since we were down to no tubes and a 40 mile ride back home, they were nice enough to stop and sell Kelly a tube for 10.00 bucks...a little pricey but piece of mind for the rest of the ride. The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful other just a nice ride back for about a 85 miler round trip.

Sunday, I did the TNT duathlon staged at Pioneers Park - 2 mile run, 12 mile bike, 2 mile run. Although my running is still a bit weak after the Sports Hernia surgery, I manged to eak out a decent first run slotting into the transition in 4th place after the first run. Brandon Jessup a native from Kearney and 2 time State Cross country champ back in the 90's and now Pro level triathlete was gone like a rocket doing a 5:13 pace first 2 mile run. Eagle resident and fellow Y member runner/ BOLT promoter was second on the run, Jared Carlson.

Brandon in the Gray, Jared on the right, Holace who is 60+ and still rockin it on the left.

The bike was OK, although a bit wet in the turns so had to scrub some speed as the back disk wheel wasn't crazy about staying hooked up. I picked up the front guys except Brandon who was long gone. I knew I had to nail the bike pretty good to keep the guys from reeling me in on the second run. I gingerly came off the bike and my sore groin was talking to me from the sports hernia issue...I slowly wound it up and finished the race up in 2nd, 1st master and age group. Really pretty happy about the result. Duathlons are tough that is for sure. Would much rather swim first...I know it sounds crazy since I'm not a good swimmer, but I just feel a lot more relaxed during that first swim then I do a first run for a duathlon, probably because my expectations are not as high.

Went and saw our Very own Darin Schlake in Hallz and Oates on Sunday night at the Zoo bar downtown. Darin has an alter-ego, I thought was always there...They were great.

Dunbar Old School on Old Hwy 2.

On the 4th I woke up pretty sore and tired, but had a ride date with Kelly and Jay T and a nice SE wind. We motored out to Syracuse where JT made his leave so he could boogie home and do a run...yes, he is bitten by the Tri bug after watching the KS 1/2 ironman. I mildly coerced Kelly into continuing to SE on the old HWY 2 road to Nebraska City and check out the flood progress down there.

You can see the flooding down that the bottom of the hill. 5 feet of water the officer said.

It was crazy how much water has moved in since I last made my way down. The officer said additional flooding was mainly caused by the damn breech at Percival down in the flood plain. He wouldn't let us go any further than the road closure barricades. Darn it. We boogied back the same way for another 90 miler day in the Hot humid Nebraska weather. Money in the bank...we'll see. Defiantly feels cleansing...at least it will when I get myself re-hydrated.

Anyway, The kids celebrated the 4th in grand style, and I think I'm still suffering from toxic sulfur inhalation from all the fireworks.

What to do this weekend?