I biked once this week, 18.35 miles.
Sunday, 7/5/2015: A bike in the morning and a trail run in the afternoon, 18.35 and 5.5 miles.
My bike, aka Black Beauty in Strava, was just waiting for me down in the basement so I decided to give it some love. I brought it upstairs, topped its tires with air, geared up and got out there. The weather was 70F, 73% RH, 7 mph SW wind and sunny. I have the Shoreline Du coming up in two weeks so I really needed some saddle time. I basically pedaled around, my average speed was 13.2 mph and top speed was 27.5 mph.
I got Christine's bike all ready but ... her stomach was bothering her and she stayed home. Her bike is now the last one in the townhouse so all she has to do is back it out 10 feet and she can ride it from the front door. I can't do much more. She is the one that has to do it.
I was relaxing with Christine with a bagel and coffee when Bill Beyerbach called about doing some Crescent Trail hill repeats in the afternoon. I readily agreed and we met up on the trailhead on Garnsey Rd at 4PM. The plan was to do 2 or 3 hill repeats for an hour. The weather was a bit sticky: 81F, 48% RH, 4 mph NE wind and sunny.
We topped off our water bottles and headed up. Bill took the lead on the first repeat up to the golf course and I led on the way down. We didn't push at all but we were definitely sweaty after the first repeat. But ... up we went for the second repeat. This time I led all the way up to Woodcliffe Lodge and back down. Kind of nice getting out twice on a Sunday!
I watched the US - Japan final of the Women's World Cup. Wow! The US was up 4-0 after 16 minutes on the strength of Calli Llloyd's hat trick! They won 5-2, links here, here, here, here and here.
Monday, 7/6/2015: 5.5 miles, 45:55, 8:21 pace, 84F, 58% RH, 11 mph S wind, partly sunny
Garmin Connect Activity for A hot and humid loop
I wanted to get out for a long run today and rest on Tuesday because I have Dirt Cheap #4 on Wednesday. Well ... it was really hot and humid so I just did a small loop. I was OK for the first 3 miles ... then it was a sweatfest with tiny walk breaks. My splits were faster than I thought: 8:08, 8:08, 8:11, 9:00, 8:30 and 7:54 over the last 0.5 mile. It felt like I was really going a lot slower.
Tuesday, 7/7/2015: Rest day ... yada, yada, yada.
The weather changed overnight from hot and humid to cool and a bit cool.
Wednesday, 7/8/32015: 3 run of 1.6 miles, Dirt Cheap #4 of 5.26 miles and 1.25 miles, 66F, 56% RH, 4 mph SE wind, overcast
It was a Dirt Cheap kind of Wednesday so I went to the latest venue of Dirt Cheap #4, Webster Town Park. I had packed all my running gear before I left for work so I changed after work and went straight there. I scored a primo parking spot in the first row about a hour before the start time of men's start of 6:30PM. I got out for a nice and easy run of 1.6 miles at 9:17 pace to warm my legs and to check out the trail conditions, link here. I did find mud and slop but nothing unusual.
I got done with my warmup run with 5 minutes to go before my start. No worries since I was parked close. I had time to go hit the head one more time and to get a sip of water. I lined up to the right and a little back from the start.
Ellen warned us to not follow the runner in front of us and Boots warned us of the hazards like prickers and limbs in the trails. And ... we were off.
The start is downhill and then across a meadow before we plunged into single track with the usual combination of mud, roots, water, prickers and overhead branches. The ever young Tom Dutton passed me at mile 1 and Joe Ciecierega passed me around mile 1.5 when I took a couple of breaths on a hill. I passed the single unmanned water stop at mile 2 before we hit the 100 yard stream crossing at mile 2.25. It was a bit hard to get back up to running speed afterward with water sloshing in my trail shoes. I got trapped behind a teenager for at least a mile when we were in single track with nowhere to pass. I bided my time and got by about a half mile to the finish. A couple more hill and then the last uphill to the finish ... and done with 5.26 miles in 49:44! The teenager was actually 11 years old and finished 8 seconds behind me. I was winded and downed a dog as soon as I could. My darling wife, Christine, sneaked up behind me and pinched my ass ... lol! Her left knee was hurting so she left to go home to ice it. I met up with her later after I stuck around for a cooldown run of 1.25 miles with Bill Beyerbach and Todd Dappen Sr, link here.
Thursday, 7/9/2015: Rest day ... resting up for another run on Friday.
Friday, 7/10/2015: Another rest day.
I was starving on the way home so I picked up a free pizza from Papa Johns. Then we vegged out on Star Trek Enterprise from Netflix. Just relaxing.
Saturday, 7/11/2015: 8.2 miles, 1:06:37, 8:07 pace, 68F, 73% RH, 6 mph SW wind, sunny.
Garmin Connect Activity for Just out to Long Pong and back
Ordinarily I don't run the day before a race but I felt I needed to today to get used to the heat and just to shake things up. I slept on the couch and woke up for good just before 8AM. I set the coffeemaker to have coffee ready when I got back, got dressed, geared up with a 20 ounce water bottle and got out there. I decided to just do a nice and easy out and back to Long Pong Rd ... nothing too hard. My splits were not bad: 8:09, 8:10, 8:05, 8:05, 8:01, 8:19, 8:04, 8:12 and 7:29 over the last 0.2 mile. I felt better for getting out there.
I just lazed the rest of the day. Christine and I tried to get to sleep early since our wakeup alarm was set for 2:45AM. Sleep did not come easily ... we struggled. Tomorrow is my third Boilermaker 15K in Utica NY and the GRTC charter bus is scheduled to leave the RTS Park'n'Ride at SJFC at 4:30AM.
