Team /var/ride

Leave a comment

November 10, 2013 by Amy B

Today’s run was supposed to be a bike ride.

Bike ready to go

The weather was complete crap this morning. Then my son smashed his forehead into the corner of a book rack at church. Team /var/bike cancelled.

In preparing for this ride I had trouble deciding what I would wear in cold weather. Running? No problem; I have a pretty good handle on what I need for which temperatures. But on a bike, there’s the wind and well, there’s the wind.

Jacket. Long sleeves. Bike shorts. Tights. Gloves. Hat/head/face/neck thing. Biking is kind of a pain in the ass.

I think if I would’ve worn this today, I would’ve been too warm.

After getting back from church and getting the (hopefully not a concussion) boy down for his nap, I took the opportunity to get out for a run. I considered a huge ass hill climb that I’ve been wanting to do but settled on a trail run. Pretty soon these trails will be snow covered anyway.

It’s 1.3 miles to the trailhead from my place so I run it as a warmup and don’t try to kill myself getting there. First mile felt kind of awful (perhaps from the sandwiches/soup I ate for lunch?) but I make it a practice to never judge a run by the first mile.

I ran the same singletrack loop I’d run the last time I was out here, and it wasn’t nearly as muddy or slick as I anticipated. But when I got to the warming shed where I had a choice to run back to the trailhead or another two-track loop, I chose the two-track. I then proceeded to miss a turn, ended up on another not as well traveled path (littered with shotgun shells) and then found myself out on a road.

Oops.

Thankfully, I’ve run this road many times so I knew where I was, but it wasn’t quite the run I’d hoped. I also had to run quite a bit on the road in my trail shoes. I never thought this was a big deal before, but since I’ve been running a lot in the Brooks Pure Flows, the Cascadias just feel like lead bricks on my feet. I struggled to maintain a pace that was 10:30s all the way home. Total mileage was only seven miles, so either this is true about the shoes or I was just off my game today. Guess it could be a little of both.

The trails were a good idea, in the end. I had some insulation from the wind among the trees. I only once started to panic about my son’s wound on his forehead and wondered if he was concussed, which is not a great thing to think when you’re out in the middle of nowhere.

This week has been all about trying to get back into the whole cross training thing. I’ve been good about getting a Jillian or other weight DVD in every other day; This week looked like this:

Monday: Jillian
Tuesday: run
Wednesday: Jillian
Thursday: run
Friday: Jillian
Saturday: Weights DVD (weather was shit and I lost motivation)
Sunday: run

I’m finally not completely sore and can sit down on the toilet without having to brace myself first (how sad). Still a little sore in my triceps. I’m also trying to do this #plankaday thing. I don’t know how beneficial it is to just do one of these a day, but I don’t see how it can hurt.

This was my last one yesterday. I don’t think I’ll be beating this one for awhile. This almost killed me. My back still hurts.

I’ll continue the other workout integration thing this week, even though the decreased mileage is starting to affect my mood. As for the weight loss challenge, I don’t expect to see any change on the scale tomorrow after Fri and Sat were kind of big fails in the diet department. I think I’ll settle tomorrow for Team /var/notgainanything.