“Let the Tour begin!” – that’s what the alarm should have screamed when it went off at like 5 a.m. this morning! Did I mention I’m not a morning person?
Even though the Tour de France officially started yesterday, for those of us who like to sleep, such as myself, it didn’t really start until today – at 5:27 a.m. to be exact!!! While yesterday’s time trial started at a somewhat decent hour of 8:30 a.m., this morning, and the next three weeks for that matter, was a whole different story – a hellish story if I do say so myself, and I do.
See, my dear, darling husband (I am so not gritting my teeth while writing this ;)) has a bit of a psychotic tradition – yep, psychotic – when it comes to the Tour. While most people would either prefer to catch the later runs on the OLN (although, it seems, OLN is no longer running the late runs … jerks!) or catch it on their PVRs later in the day, not Mario, nope, that just wouldn’t be the cycling way. He’s got to watch it live! He’s got to suffer with the riders, he says. And you know, that would be fine if the thing started at like 7 even, but noooooo some of the mountain stages start at like 3:30 in the freaking morning!!!
Now you understand my psychotic reference don’t you?
![early morning Tour](http://princessofpavement.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/early-morning-tour.jpg?resize=500%2C379)
Mario tries to be quiet, he really does, but because we live in a loft, there are no doors to drown out the sounds or darken the lights. When we moved here, one of the first things he bought was an audio cable to plug earphones into so I wouldn’t hear the TV, but there’s nothing to soften the creakiness of his office chair when he moves around in it, or the clicking of the keyboard keys when he noodles around on the Internet while immersed in his viewing pleasure – just a pillow for me to bury my head under and a bed for me to thrash around in!
And he doesn’t just watch it live, it’s also recorded on the PVR so we can watch it later as well – to catch things he might have missed in the first viewing! And then, for one week of the Tour (it used to be two weeks before I came along) he takes holidays and goes for like five hour rides following the coverage. PSYCHOTIC!!!
Now, running 16 km of my own free will, that’s not psychotic at all 😀
I was a little worried when I started the run this morning, given last week’s squatting in the stinging nettles drama, and tried not to think about my bladder at all. But you know when you’re trying not to think about something how it makes you think about it even more. Well, that was me. Luckily though, I battled through it pretty good. I had the “feeling” but nothing like last week, and was able to make it the entire run without veering off to the bushes! Although, I did learn that there’s one section along the route that is apparently a good squatting spot when the corn stalks have risen. Corn lovers, I promise I won’t pee on your corn … at least, I’ll try not to!
We ended the run with an “hors categorie” … hey! I’m in Le Tour mode too!
TODAY’S RUN:
- 8:15 a.m. BG before: 6.1 (granola bar no bolus … and two DEX tablets … temp basal -50 per cent)
- Distance: 16 km (LSD)
- 2 GU gels, 1 every 45 minutes
- Average pace: 6:59
- Time: 1:52:03
- 11 a.m. BG after: 13.2 (higher than I would have liked, but you can’t be perfect all the time)
ps. I really do like the Tour, especially when Alberto Contador and Fabian Cancellara and George Hincapie and Christian Vande Velde and, yes, Lance too are all on the screen (excuse me while I wipe the drool from my face) just NOT at 4 in the morning is all!