Running and Biking

6 solid days of exercise this week, 3 runs, 3 rides.  That's the kind of exercise schedule I would like to have every week!  The runs are still leaning towards the shorter and slower side for the most part, but I am hopeful that distance and speed will come, especially if the pulmonologist helps me out with the asthma issues when I see him in early August.

This week:

M : run 6.5 

T : bike 21

W : bike 16.6

R : run 6.2

F : run 3.6

Sa : bike 65.2

run total : 16.3 miles

bike total : 102.9 miles

This week in running was the first time I ran 3 times in one week since the last week of April, and the first time I ran 6 or more miles at once since the middle of May.  I have been icing my foot after each run, and so far it seems to be going well.  Monday's run was slow, but not so much on purpose.  Since it was a struggle to keep up the pace, I purposely jogged on Thursday.  That ended up feeling even more miserable overall, although my lungs were happier.  After all that slowness, I was feeling a need for speed, so Friday I went out to the flattest neighborhood in town and did two, one mile sprints, around the loop.  I would say the sprints were somewhere around 90% effort, and my "recovery" in between them was somewhere around 75%, and about 3/10 mile.  So, not much of a recovery.  The second mile sprint was a lot harder than the first breathing-wise.  I was really struggling for oxygen by the time I finished it, but I didn't ease off the effort until I had reached the end of the mile.  The mile loop only has an elevation gain of 30ft.  I ran the first mile in 6:36 and the second in 6:52.

I kept my first two bike rides relatively short and easy this week, because Saturday's ride was the annual Wheels of Hope ride and I didn't want to burn out my bike muscles before my longest ride ever.  This ride last year was a mostly miserable experience thanks to lots of rain and my back not being even remotely strong enough for the 58 mile ride.  The course was different last year because of a bridge being washed out, but this year it was back to it's intended 65 mile course. 

I woke up to thunder on Saturday morning, which was not promising.  I had told myself that this year I would let myself wimp out if it was raining.  I checked the weather many times in the 2 hours between when I woke up and when the ride was supposed to start, and every time it had a different percentage chance of rain.  The ride was scheduled for 8, and at 7:40 it still wasn't raining, so I got ready and went out the door.  At 8, the ride was on, and we headed out hoping for the best.  I didn't know of anyone else riding the 65 mile, so I was on my own.  Then, about 10 miles in, two people I know passed me.  They were riding with a couple of other people, and we got a pace line going for the long stretch down into Alderson.  We ended up staying together for the whole ride.  I tended to pull away on the climbs, but since riding with a group is far preferable to riding alone for 65 miles, I always stopped to wait after the climbs.  We pace-lined most of the flats, which made them fly by easier.  We stopped at a rest stop around mile 36 for some gatorade and snacks.  We ended up finishing the ride in 4:46:14, with 3:46:10 of moving time.  7 miles longer than last year, but only 5 extra minutes of moving time.  And we climbed over 5900 ft! Thankfully, it only rained for a few minutes of the ride, and the sun came out for most of it.  It ended up being a gorgeous day!

Overall, I was very pleased with my ride.  I broke a bunch of my personal bests on Strava segments, and even stole first place on the leaderboard for once section of the 5 mile climb on Snake Run Rd.  My lower back did not give me any trouble at all, which was a huge plus.  My neck did cramp up pretty bad, and is still a bit sore, but this discomfort is far preferable to the back trouble I was plagued with last summer.  

Wheels of Hope Metric

I'm still not running...and will probably be taking off another month before I attempt running again.  And since I've been biking so much (I'm now up to 110-120+ miles per week) I had no excuse not to ride in the  Wheels of Hope event yesterday.  There were 4 different distances to choose from.  The 18 and 31 mile options were too close to my normal daily mileage, and the 112 option was definitely much too long for me.  So I chose the 63 mile option.  I had never ridden more than 50, but thanks to my new yoga-ish 10 minute morning stretching routine, my back has been doing better.  And I'm always up for a challenge when it comes to exercise.

Lewisburg has been suffering from a drought all summer.  We have been in need of rain for awhile now.  The rain picked yesterday to finally show up. (Also, it was barely 60 degrees out...not my ideal weather!)  Running in the rain stopped bothering me a long time ago, but I had not yet gotten brave enough to really ride in the rain.  However, I had signed up for this thing, and I had paid for it, so there was no way I was going to let myself wimp out.  There were some changes made to the course because of something wrong with a bridge somewhere on the course, so the course was shortened to 58 miles.  I had no complaints about that.

When I run races, I am used to starting at the very front and doing my best to stay ahead of the pack so I don't get pushed around or boxed in.  I had no such delusions with biking, so I tried to start near the back.  It was still a miserable traffic jam at the beginning.  Being boxed in on a bike with people swerving all over the place and rain spraying off of tires into my face was not a pleasant experience.  It was rather terrifying.  I had to deal with that for the first 2 miles or so before I could finally get around the craziness and find a nice empty stretch of road between packs of people.  It meant riding faster than I had planned, but at that point all I cared about was feeling safer.  And getting the ride over with so I could get out of the rain.

After a lot of back and forth with the local bike mechanic (mostly me pulling ahead on climbs, and him pulling ahead on flats/descents), we ended up riding together.  We still had some back and forth with climbs and descents, but whoever was behind always caught up to the other eventually.  It was really nice to have someone to ride with and complain with about the weather and our various aches and pains.  My back held up remarkably well, didn't really start bothering me until somewhere around mile 40.  By mile 50, I was beat.  My neck and shoulders got really cramped, and my legs were worn out.  There were a few small climbs in those last miles, that normally wouldn't be a big deal, but I'm pretty sure they caused my legs more pain than I have ever felt before while on a bike.  I really wanted to give up and lie down on the side of the road until someone came to get me.  But of course I just get spinning the pedals and eventually the ride was over.

We finished the 58.3 mile ride in 3:41.  There was 4,538 feet of elevation change in that ride.  There was a 2.5 mile climb somewhere in the middle of the ride.  Thankfully, I had ridden that part of the ride once before, so I knew what to expect on that hill.

Overall, I'm really happy with how the ride went.  It was cold, wet, and miserable, but I didn't wreck, and I didn't get injured.  Aside from the cold/wet part, I actually felt pretty good throughout the ride.  I thought I would be really sore today, but there's just a little bit of stiffness in my shoulders.