Power Weekend

A 2.5-hour run on Saturday, followed by a 5-hour bike on Sunday, left me a quivering mass of jelly by Sunday night. Throw in some gardening and a couple slow family bike rides, and I was more than ready for bed.

My two big workouts couldn't have been more different.

Saturday's run, despite starting at 5:30 a.m., was hot hot hot. I was also very alone. In the first hour, I didn't see a soul. Not in a car, not walking, not anything. After that, I saw a gradually increasing number of people on the bike path to exchange a nod with.

Sunday's bike was cool and social, by contrast. We had a group of six, thrown together over the course of a week, and it turned out to be a terrific group. No one was high maintenance or in danger of getting left behind. No one was going crazy out in front pushing the pace too hard. It started raining after the first hour, which was a blessing in disguise. Riding in the rain isn't that much fun, but it kept everyone very cool. I didn't need to drink as much, or take salt, and I could stomach a lot more food. Everyone had a similar sensibility about what a long bike workout should look like, even though most people didn't know each other, and it turned out great.

At home, Nora (5) moved up to a bigger sized bicycle (still with training wheels) and Michael (3) left his tricycle behind to ride on the smaller bike with training wheels. Consequently, there were frequent family bike rides over the weekend, proceeding at a pace of about 5mph. It's actually quite challenging to ride that slowly, even in my lowest gear, so the slow-speed work was good for my bike handling skills. Michael needed quite a bit of coaching on cornering and using his coaster brakes, but he's a natural. He even called out "Slowing!" when he was slowing down, just like a real roadie!

This was my hardest training weekend so far, and I made it through easily. I felt like I could have run more, and I felt like I could have biked more. Right up until I tried to walk down a flight of stairs and had to do it sideways because of killer quad fatigue. :-)