First outdoor ride and What gives BAA?

Well Thursday I had an odd day off as part of my quarterly schedule. This week I was off Thursday, working Friday and Saturday and then off Sunday to go back in on Monday. But my quirky hours aside Thursday proved to be a good day to be out of the office. There were clear skies, temperatures hovering around 70 and a bike with a brand new chain and cassette chilling in the garage, my plan for the day was clear. I was riding and it was not going to be a trainer session. I spent about 20 minutes in the morning digging the end of one of my draw strings out of the waist band of my tri shorts, then packed The Bitch Stomper into my Subaru and made the now much shorter ride from Waterbury out to Middlebury to do some loops of the Pat Griskus Tri course. While part of me wanted to be adventurous and go and do my 50 mile Quassy to Waramaug route, I hadn't ridden outdoors in nearly six months and after this years brutal winter the roads were going to be pitted and most likely sand covered, so I stuck to the easy 10 mile loop through some "gentle rolling hills" and farm land. The first mile I was greeted by something that seemed missing on the trainer: a crosswind while going down hill at 30 mph no less. For a second I had to relearn how to handle a bike, as I felt the rear wheel going a little sideways and my bike being pushed to the right, just tried to go with it pushing left just enough to keep the Stomper from going off the road. The roads weren't too bad, there were only two rough spots, the bottom of the "s" curve and the right hander on to Tomilson road still had some grit which required me to coast at a lower speed than normal, but for the most part things went pretty smooth. The sufferfest spin Dvd's really helped this winter in that I focused more on climbing with a strong cadence rather than mashing heavy gears and I noticed that I was able to hold a larger gear than last season on the final climb at mile nine and I didn't need to get out of the saddle. Overall my speed wasn't too far off from normal either I averaged 16.2 mph for 20 miles. Not bad for sitting on an exercise bike all winter. I decided that since it was a georgous day to tack on a nice 8 mile run as a brick. My legs felt a little heavy as I tackled the opening 8 miles of the Rev3 Half run course. By the time I hit the dirt road portion of White Deer Rocks my legs had found their stride granted they still felt a little tight. I know if I want to do Rev3 and if I want to do well I'm going to need to work on running after hard climbing rides. All in all the run didn't go to badly as I popped my usual day dream of one day winning Kona and amuzed myself with the idea of one day being able to race pro. Ok yes I know that reallistically that neither may never happen but if it gives me the strength to push a little harder on a long training run then damn it I'm not going to knock it. And my time for the run was 1:12, not Crowie killing fast but good for the first brick of the season. And speaking of running, the Boston Marathon is coming up on Monday. So good luck to Mary the Iron Matron in the Patriots' Day classsic, and while I'm on the note of the Boston Marathon, what gives with the new qualifying standard? I had been surfing the HEAT forum and heard that the Boston Athletic Association ( BAA) had just lowered the time standards for the 2013 running of the Boston Marathon and put in bonuses for faster runners in 2012 ( ie the faster you run the earlier you get to register.) I'm not really opposed to the fast kids getting to sign up first, that's fair because hey if you run a 2:12 marathon you should be running in Boston, but did they have to make the time standard for guys under 35 3:05, I mean 3:10 was just starting to seem within grasp. Hell my girlfriend's mom even works in Hopkinton and she lives like 2 seconds away so I will even have a place to crash when I eventually qualify. If my Kona dream fell through this year I would try making a good attempt at a Beantown slot at the Hartford Marathon, but now it seems like that I might have to start training with Ryan Hall to even have a prayer at running Boston before I turn 35, granted even 3:05 doesn't sound that bad, but that's still 16 minutes I have to drop from my current PR but now it has to be 3:05:00 or under you don't even get the 59 seconds you used to. I mean I know it's Boston and it's a big deal but come on BAA , I think us New Englanders should get a break, I mean it's not like we're in Kenya or Cali where we have beautiful 50+ degree weather and mountains to train in all winter to prep for our qualifier and then the race, I think a New England winter is worth an extra 5 minutes because otherwise all your going to have is a bunch of college track kids, Kenyans, Ethiopians, and dudes from Cali towing the line in Boston, and I mean come on the Californians have the Frisco, Big Sur and LA marathons let us have NYC and Boston...please, pretty please? Well that's my two cents, happy training all R.D.