Training 2008W23-25

I took Monday off. I don't remember why; my calendar says "Lyndhurst council mtg 8pm", but I don't think I went.

Tuesday I took advantage of an early Julian bedtime and headed out for a mini-brick: 6 miles on the bike over to Performance to see if they had caps for my cleats. They didn't have any that fit my Teflon-endowed Looks, which might reflect on the availability of such a product or the incompetence of the hired help. I'll try a real bike shop next time I'm in the neighborhood. I digress. Having ridden home, I switched to sneakers for a surprisingly quick 5k. Like, 7:30 quick. Like, sub-24-minute quick. It's high time to run another sprint, or at least a 5k with race numbers, to claim that PR.

A couple of rainy days stumped my bicycle commute, but Friday was nice. I rode to work, then took the medium-distance route home, down the valley. 26 miles total, in about 90 minutes including traffic-related pauses.

On Sunday the 8th was the CTC's Sunday in June ride in Burton, Ohio. I rode the 100-km route with Andrew and Scott, completing the trip in about 3:50 riding time. The weather was beautiful (sunny and warm, a bit windy on some of the more open roads); the ride was through Amish country, which aside from passing by the occasional horse-drawn buggy or clusters of Amlets playing outdoors in their Sunday best (rather than, I presume, in the air conditioning with eyes glues to Nickelodeon like their modern brethren) didn't add much of note. But, road conditions were good, and riding with gobs of other cyclists is always fun. Here's a Google Maps view of our route.

I commuted a couple of times to school the following week, 17-18-ish miles round-trip. On Sunday, Andrew, Scott and I again hit a morning ride, which we dovetailed into the regular Roads Scholars run for a 20+8-mile brick. But, I haven't downloaded the Garmin info to claim any numbers for it yet. More to come.

My legs were still a bit sore that afternoon as I boarded the plane to New Orleans for a few days of scientific adventure at the 2008 SNM meeting (note: link is not as dangerous as you might think). Monday I took off from running (which had nothing to do with touring Bourbon Street the night before, but I did get some leisurely jogs in on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, about an hour apiece, I'd guess 5-6 miles. I was highly motivated by post-run beignets.

The Friday evening following, J and I put the jogging stroller to its first semi-serious test around my usual neighborhood 5k route. No problem: he woke up about 20 minutes into the run and spent the remainder happily looking around. So, we tried again on Saturday: a family 5k at Bedford Reservation (sans hound; we'll add him into the mix at a future date) along with {J,R}V, with another 5 tacked on without the stroller, for fear of sleeping-position-induced neck soreness for the little one. In retrospect, though, he didn't seem to have any ill effects at all.