Flat Tires

Last week I was pulling out of my parents driveway to head back to school and realized I had a flat tire on my car. I put the spare on had it changed, and it put me back a couple of hours.

A few days later I had a duathlon (run-bike-run) that I did in Shreveport. Not being much of a runner, the first run (2.5 kilometers) went fine, and I got on the bike ready for the 12 miles. It was really flat, and after a couple of miles into a head wind, I was able to hold a solid pace around 23 mph. My bike split was definitely making up for my limited running ability until about 10.5 miles in. I took the last turn on the ride, went down the only hill on the course, and my front tire popped. With 1.5 miles left to go, I decided to run it in to the transition area instead of quitting and waiting on the sag-wagon. I had to do this barefoot since I was wearing bike shoes, and they're not really designed for anything but pedaling. I got passed back by just about everyone I'd passed plus more, but got a lot of laughs as I made it back to the transition. The second run was slow since I'd already done all the running I cared to do, but I made through fine.

I'm glad I'll carry a spare tire with me this summer. And I'm really glad I decided to bike across America instead of running it.

This summer I'll defintely