I went out on my second ever group ride yesterday with some local triathletes. I’m pretty much clueless when it comes to riding with other people and all, but they were kind enough to let me tag along. The pace started out pretty hard and I was really suffering for the first 45 minutes or so. Everytime I looked down, we were going at least 5 MPH faster than my normal training pace. It felt more like the pace I’d race at and my HR showed! When I saw my HR up around 160, I thought about telling the guys that I had had enough, but my ego prevented me from actually saying what I was thinking and I stuck around. Soon after, they were pretty kind and the pace slowed down substantially. Maybe it was just my “initiation” to the group?

In any case, riding with other folks is pretty fun. It’s good and bad, I suppose. I hate feeling like I’m causing someone else not to ride as hard as they otherwise would be (and yesterday it certainly felt that way despite their attempts to convince me otherwise). That and I pretty much had no clue as to where we were going so had I needed to turn around, I wouldn’t have known how to get back. But it was good to actually have human interaction for what normally is hours of silence and pedaling. And I’m sure that I’ll learn to be a faster rider by riding outside of my comfort zone and training with people faster than me. But man are my legs sore…

And it looks like it’s going to be yet another beautiful week here in Minnesota. I still hate it here.

The heat was out in full force and once again kicking my ass. I was doing alright until about 30 minutes in when my heart rate just went through the roof and I had to slow way down. I didn’t feel too bad about it since I actually ran for longer than I had scheduled.

I’m hoping that I’ll acclimate soon. If I can adapt to 90 degree and humid weather, that’d be a big benefit in case it’s the way come race day.

• Apple announced that they were moving away from IBM processors and moving to Intel x86 chips instead. I didn’t think I’d ever see the day that this would happen. I’m sure Mac owners are all on the verge of suicide. I’d love for Apple to have their software run on “generic” hardware, although I really doubt that Apple will go down this path. Don’t get me wrong, I love OS X. But I find folks that buy Macs knowing little about what’s underneath and just because it’ll look pretty sitting on their desk somewhat annoying.

• The Detroit Pistons beat the Miami Heat to win the NBA Eastern Conference title. It’s official. This should now make for the most boring NBA finals in the history of basketball. I hate the rail thin Tayshaun Prince and I hate Rip Hamilton, how ugly his stupid face mask is and how he dribbles off to the side on his free throws (but in fairness, Chauncey and Rasheed are ok). I’d rather roll around in a pile of barbed wire than watch a defensively focused game of any kind.

• I ran outside yesterday in near 90 degree temperatures with fairly high humidity. I still die like a pig in the heat, although I’m still running faster than I was last year. I’d like to believe that all my running ailments are behind me, but I just don’t know…

Well, I have a few rides on my saddle, so I can I can write my review. I basically decided to switch from the San Marco Azoto saddle to something new because I figured my old saddles padding was getting a little worn down by now and frankly just because I wanted to try something new. I get bored with things pretty quickly so am always looking for something to change out to keep things fresh. A friend of mine also recently broke his rails on his Azoto saddle and I’ve read reports of many others doing the same. I figured this was a good opportunity for a little preventative maintenance.

The first thing that intrigued me with this saddle was that it had a cut-out. Actually, I take that back. The first thing that I noticed about the saddle was the price. A quick online search and I could get the saddle for about $70!! Compared to $130 of many of the other competitors on the market, this seemed like a dream. And the saddle comes with a warranty for a few years. It doesn’t say if the rails are covered or not, but I know for certain that San Marco doesn’t cover their rails in their warranty (if they even have a warranty). For $130, you’d think that you’d be buying at least some protection? But anyway, back to the cut-out… my Azoto (really, the only other saddle that I’ve ridden for any significant amount of time) caused me some numbness and tingling when riding, especially while riding on the trainer. I wanted to try a saddle with a cut-out to see if that helped to alleviate the problem.

The saddle itself is quite long. I’d say almost an inch longer from end to end than the Azoto. It is also longer vertically from the rails to the top of the saddle so I was well served in taking numerous measurements before I swapped my saddle out. There also seems to be slightly more rail play when adjusting the saddle forward (I’m not sure about if you ride with the saddle in a slack position [forward on the rails] because I don’t ride that way). There was plenty of room to get me nice and steep on my P3.

Another difference between this saddle and my Azoto is that it’s flat across the top. I really like this feature of the saddle. With the Azoto, if I would try and scoot back to have more of my weight distributed across the back of the saddle, the saddle would end up being too high for my natural pedal stroke and it would end up pushing me forward anyway due to the tilt. The Tri-Stryke has no such angle and allows me to scoot back and be more supported on my sit bones. It still obviously causes my pedal stroke to be lengthened by moving back, but not double so like the Azoto (moving back and up at the same time).

The tip of the saddle is very thick. Most people think that the Azoto saddle is wide enough at the nose, but it has nothing on this saddle. The Tri-Stryke is far wider at the nose than any other tri or road saddle that I’ve seen. This doesn’t really bother me though. My thighs do touch the nose a little when I pedal, but between my shorts and the slick neoprene cover of the Tri-Stryke, this doesn’t really cause any problems.

But for the meat of things, how does it ride? Well, saddles are very much a personal thing. But I can say that this saddle seems to work out for me pretty darn well. The cut-out hasn’t really eliminated the tingling in my nether region, but it does seem a little better. I really think the numbness has more to do with my bike shorts itself, but I digress. For whatever reason be it the cut-out, the extra padding on the nose, the flatter top of the saddle, the Tri-Stryke saddle does one thing for me. It allows me to sit in my aero position more comfortably and for a longer period of time. And for the ten hours or so a week that I currently sit on my saddle, $70 is a small price to pay for a little extra comfort.

Woot! I indeed have had issues with a short battery life on my iPod, but don’t really use it that much that I ever gave it much thought. According to http://www.appleipodsettlement.com, I should be eligible for a fix or a $50 credit for Apple goods. Now hopefully I can find my receipt…

My achilles pain hopefully was short lived. It hurt on Tuesday and a little on Wednesday, but didn’t bother me at all yesterday. I’m going to try and run on it for an hour today and see how that goes. I did a short run of three miles yesterday without trouble after my ride, so I’m hoping that it goes alright.

Training is going pretty well. The weather here has been ok this past week, but I think we’re going to get rain tonight and scattered rain throughout the weekend. Hopefully, I’ll still be able to get a long ride in outside this weekend. But not if it involves riding in the rain for long periods of time. I made that mistake a few weeks ago and ended up just trashing my bike. There was sand everywhere that took me hours to get off. I am pretty anal about my bike and it’s probably cleaner than the surfaces that I eat off of. But I’d rather avoid having to take my bike completely apart again if I can.

I’m not on-call anymore for work which is a nice treat. Although I did map out the schedule for the rest of the year. Not only was I on-call over Memorial Day, I’m also on-call over the 4th of July, and for Thanksgiving AND Christmas. Doesn’t that suck. :(

Lastly, I leave you all with this video. You get what you get… :)