Multi sport Sunday

Today has been a great day! The weather has been perfect for outdoor activities. The time changed so I got an extra hour of sleep too. Actually it was kind of nice to try to sleep in since I didn't have to get up at 5am to run. I had to make myself stay in the bed till about 7:30 new time. Got some good needed rest. And even better we didn't even have one fire call all night.

I knew once I got up that I would be running sometime today. It was so nice not having to run at a certain time that I just lazed around. Annette went to swim at 8:45 so I decided I'd run later. I ended up going out around 10:30am for a nice 2.8 mile recovery run. Nothing fast, but not too slow either. I just wanted to run and enjoy it. It's weird after doing long runs that 2.8 seems like nothing almost. Trying to hold back and not run too fast I ended with a 10:07 pace. Pretty much what I planned. Faster than my relaxed pace and slower than my LT pace. I ran mile 2 in a 9:40. Afterwards I soaked my legs in the pool for about 15-20 minutes. The water was ice cold. It felt pretty good and by the time I got out my feet were numb. It sure did help the muscle soreness. I forgot to mention that before I ran I did about 15 minutes of ab and core exercises also.

With the weather being beautiful and in the lower 70's, I decided that I'd break out the road bike and ride with the group at the 1:30pm regular Sunday ride. This was the first time I have had the bike out since the Big Dam Bridge 100 miler in September. There ended up being a good group of riders today. Probably close to 12-15. Since a few of us were doing marathon training we opted for a shorter route than normal today. Again, the weather was perfect and not a bit cool for riding. I have no cold weather gear yet so my tri shorts and my BDB 100 jersey was perfect. As with most rides we started out slow and then someone takes off. The riders that want to push it try to keep up. We had a tail wind going down Mt Tabor road and it wasn't long before I wanted to go faster too. After I passed a few people I think I was riding in about 4th or 5th position. We had to be averaging close to 19mph as I looked down several times and I was going 20 with no major effort. There are several good hills on this road also so with every small uphill there is a downhill to go faster on. The bike is just fun, especially when your legs are fresh and you feel like hammering. When we got to Hwy 31 we stopped to wait on the other riders. When we started back I started thinking, I better slow down and take it easy. I'm training for a marathon and some of these fast bikers don't even run. So I slowed it down a bit. Some of the group took 31 to Hwy 38 to go back and most opted for the shorter route which was Hwy 321. I started towards 38 when I saw 3 bikes coming back toward me. They said they changed their mind so I did the same and ended up riding 321 back to the starting point. 321 does have some big hills on it, not monsters but big enough you feel them and have to drop the gears down to make it up. We had a head wind going back so that made it not as fun. Head wind and uphills equal hard work!

It was a great ride with great people. I ended up with right at 20 miles and an average pace of 15.3 mph. This would have been more but we rode slow and talked going back on 321 for a while. It wasn't about the time today anyway, just getting out on the bike and enjoying the outdoors. I did burn 980 calories so its all good. It was nice to be back riding the bike. I just hope we get some more good days like today before it gets too cold.