Running out of Tubes

Doing my Pre Race training sessions today was a real mission. After work I stopped by the gym to do an easy 500 meter swim with 5x10 seconds pick ups. As I arrived at the gym the whole pool, all five lanes were occupied by children playing in the pool.

I can't understand why can't management not tell them not to play in the pool or at least play in one lane. As I prepared to get into the pool I saw that these children are not going to move over so I just got into one lane and started swimming.

At first I thought I was lucky as the children moved to another lane but that was just the way the played. It wasn't long before they were back in the lane I used and I stopped and asked them to please play in the other lanes and give me this one to swim in.

After about 5 laps they were in my lane again and I had to slow down to give the little guy a chance to moved out of the way. On my way back he was in front of me again and that's when I decided to give him some Ironman race swimming mass start therapy.

I just kept swimming and swam right over him pushing him down and that was the end of anyone in my lane again. I could hear they weren't happy with me as I got out of the pool but hey I did asked nicely on more than one occasion. If you don't want to listen you must learn the hard way, boy.

My frustration did not stop there. When I got home I decided to do my 30 minute bike ride on the trainer as I also had to do 5x10 seconds sprints and cycling in town, this would have been difficult. After only 6 minutes I got a flat on the trainer? I changed the tyre and after another 4 minutes I got another flat.

It took me more than a hour to complete the bike session as I had to clean everything after the first puncture as the tube had some slime in it. After the second puncture I had to look for a decent tube as I didn't want to use one of my race tubes.

This is what happen when you have a flat on a Computrainer, the watt reading goes haywire. 2036 watts as a maximum, with that number I can give some professional bikers a run for there money.

Luckily the 15 minute run after the bike went OK with no problem. I then started getting everything ready for tomorrow, and as I wiped the dirt off my bike I noticed the rear wheel was flat again.

I got another tube and as I fitted it the valve was leaking and as soon as I pumped it and release the pump nozzle it was deflating. I changed the tyre and the new one also had a faulty valve. I was now on the edge of being Norman Stadler at Ironman Worlds three years ago but I don't have a sponsored bike so I couldn't throw it like he did.

Looking at the third tube after I finished and it was my own fault as I damaged the tube while being in a hurry fitting it to finish the bike session.

One lesson learned today is to check my spare tubes regularly and stock up. Luckily I had enough spares but I am now on the limit regarding spare tubes. Three flats and two with faulty valve, going through five tubes in one day, more than what I used the whole of last year.

Hopefully I am now done with flats as I am very lean on spare tubes for tomorrow's race. I only have two, so if something happen before the race there might be a chance that I will race without spare tubes.

Eventually after a whole afternoon of practise to change tyres everything is now ready for tomorrow. We are leaving at 4am to be at the race at 6am as the race starts at 7am and I still need to register. It is only me and Kim going, DJ is staying home with my mother.

Tomorrow is also my mother and sister's birthdays so when we get back from the race tomorrow afternoon we will have two birthdays to celebrate.