Yesterday my sisters came to visit and while Kelly was at work, Heather and I headed out for a bike ride. It's been over two weeks since I've been on my bike (oops) so it was nice to have my sissy to ride with on my first ride back!
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| sissy bike time! |
Heather's bike is WAY more legit than mine and made my hand-me down Trek look like a Wal-Mart Huffy. She was pedaling away up hills and I was teetering along behind her trying not to die. The bikers I've talked to have said that if I had a better bike I'd be able to ride much easier, and while I've semi-bought into this statement, I mostly just thought I was somehow getting really out of shape and that my running endurance didn't translate into biking endurance.
To test the theory, I made Heather switch bikes with me about halfway through our ride (there's power in being the older sister). I was SHOCKED at how much easier it felt to ride on her bike! I was tackling the road like it was nothin but a thing, and Heather, a MARATHONER, was getting tired and winded on my Trek-Huffy. Who knew a good bike could make such a difference?!
I made a deal with her (again, the power of being the big sister ;) and she's letting me borrow her bike for the Tour de Cure next week. Maybe now I won't feel like keeling over and dying after my 40 mile leg. At least not as much as if I was taking Huffy out for the ride! Big Red is a total game changer for the Tour. Watch out.
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| post ride, that's big red in the background |
Once we switched bikes the ride was awesome and way fun for me! We did a nice route that included roads and the canal... I didn't even get us killed when we were making left turns on the road. I think that means I'm moving on up in the cycling world.
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| thanks for a great ride sissy! |
Since I finally got back on the bike yesterday, that meant only one thing for today... long run! My next half marathon is 27 days away and I've done ZERO double digit runs since my first half... 5 weeks ago! Needless to say that awesome training schedule I made myself hasn't really panned out like I thought it would.
After our group run on Thursday night we all must have been on our runner's high because we decided that we would all meet today at 1pm for a 10 miler. Great idea at the time, not so much when today rolled around. Especially when the weather looks like this:
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| rain rain rain! why! |
The catch 22 of having a group of people you commit to running with is that you can't back out or you feel like a weenie. I SO wanted to bail and not run, but I committed to going so I did. And at the end I was glad I went as usual, especially since I knew I would never have made it out there on my own!
We started in a little bit of rain and then it got hot and muggy... the weather was seriously all over the place! My knee was bothering me so I walked more than I typically would have on a long run and debated not going the full 10. And then remembered that I don't want to DNF at my next half in 3 weeks so sucked it up.
We did a 6 mile out and back on the canal and stopped to refuel and refill our water. Then we did another 4 mile out and back in the opposite direction. Miles 6-8 were so. long. Seriously felt like the longest two miles I've ever ran. The last two back weren't bad and we were all psyched when all of our Garmin's finally beeped 10 miles.
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| first double digit run in 5 weeks - check! |
It was definitely a slow run and I feel like my legs almost forgot what it felt like to run more than 7 miles. It wasn't as tough as I had anticipated though for my first double digit run in a while. Well it was tough, just not as disastrous as some runs tend to be.
I laid down when I got home and forgot the awesome feeling of napping after a long run. Best part of the day! For some reason I was antsy to get on my bike all day (might have something to do with the new bike shorts I bought today), so I decided to go out for a quick ride to test out the new shorts (they're actually tri shorts, which means they don't feel like a diaper like bike shorts, but still have a little bit of padding so you can bike AND run in them. Without looking like a waddling toddler in a diaper).
I had about 24 minutes of daylight left before weather.com told me the sun was going to set so I jetted out and was back in less than 20 minutes. Not a bad test ride for the new shorts.
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| a little nightcap ride! |
And now I am pretty exhausted from my weekend of active birthday activities. Hopefully this weekend kicks off a productive week of training since my ride and half are coming up way faster than I expected! Sitting on the couch in compression gear eating popcorn will no doubt help to kick the week of right....right?!
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