Three Things Thursday

1. On Tuesday night I went to a very useful class on Roadside Bike Maintenance at Spokes, Etc. in Alexandria.  After my pre-triathlon bike drama, I did a little Internet searching to see if I could find a class that would teach me the basics of bike repair/maintenance.  It turns out that Spokes offers this free class once and month and I got lucky because it was this week!  The instructor went over removing the back wheel, changing a flat, changing the tension in the cables, cleanin,g and what to carry with you when you are out riding.  I knew I needed to clean my bike, but I didn't really know what to do.  So now that I do, I will definitely be cleaning it this weekend!  In general, I thought it was a great class and most definitely worth my time.  If you are just as clueless as I was, I'd recommend heading over there for the July class.

2. I survived my first ride with my new clipless pedals and shoes yesterday morning, but on the way home I had my first fall.  I was actually coming to a stop with my right foot unclipped and I put it down, but somehow ended up leaning just a little too far to the left.  I could feel myself tipping, but I couldn't recover and before I knew it I was on the ground.  I only ended up with a few cuts on my elbow, so it really wasn't that bad.  Fortunately, there were plenty of witnesses since I was in the bike lane on Pennsylvania Ave, including another biker who didn't seem to believe me when I said I was fine.

I figured that falling was somewhat inevitable, so I'm almost glad that I got the first one out of the way.  Hopefully there won't be too many more!  This did make me realize that I have been leaning too much on my left foot when stopping, even though I always put my right foot down first.  This wasn't an issue with platform pedals (or even the toe clips because my foot came out more easily) because my left foot could slip off and join my right foot on the ground.  I noticed I was doing this later in my ride home and because I was more aware I could correct it in time.  I definitely need to remember to focus on keeping my weight to the right.

3. On Saturday I'm running the Lawyers Have Heart 10k. I don't have a lot of expectations for this race and I'm not really planning on setting any goals.  Back at the beginning of May I had high hopes that I would do weekly speedwork, but I ended up spending more time biking and swimming and never actually made it to the track.  And I've only done one or two tempo runs since the Broad Street Run on May 1.  It's probably all for the best since the heat would make chasing my PR pretty difficult. So I'm just going to show up and see what happens.  I'd like to beat my time from last year, 57:22, which I think should be should be possible.  My office has a team and a post-race breakfast planned, so it should be a fun time regardless of how the actual running goes.

I must admit that my favorite part of this race is that there is a special category for law librarians!  Hopefully I can manage to place in the top three of this "special category."  It's quite possible that there may be only three of us in the race, but that doesn't matter to me!