Monday, July 2, 2007

On the Eve of Vacation

Tomorrow morning, Bradford and I depart for sunny California. Yay!!!

...but before I forget, I should tell you about Thursday's run and Saturday's ride.

When I arrived at the RunTex annex on Thursday, I was shocked to see that so few people made it to training. Also, thanks to all the rain, Town Lake was flooded in so many places that we had to run on the track at the School for the Deaf. Growing up in this part of Texas, I'm familiar with the dangers of flooding. Still when I see images like the one below, I am ever thankful for the dam system that keep those of use who live near the water safe. Can you believe that's Congress Avenue?!?



Anyway, back to the workout...

The steamy jog uphill was more intense that what I would call a "warm-up", but I do have to remind myself that most of the other gals in the training group trained for 8 weeks before I began. Me, I would run a wimpy 2 miles here and there with no speed work! Anyway, after drills I ran a 5-4-3-2-1. This means that I ran "fast" for 5 minutes with a 5 minute break, then 4 minute intervals, then 3, and so on. It was brutal, but I did it! :-)

Later that evening, I decided to follow my coach's advice and I wrapped a big ol' ice pack around my legs. Amazingly, I woke up Friday with absolutely NO soreness. Go figure!

Thanks to a couple beers Friday night, Saturday morning started a little later that usual. We didn't make it out to the Veloway until almost 9AM. The sun was already beating down and I was anxious to get going. Just as we were about to head out, Bradford accidently let the air out of his back tire, tearing the valve stem on the tube. Unfortunately, it took a bit of troubleshooting to figure out the last part, so we didn't get on the road until 10AM! No matter, though. We had a good ride. At the VERY END of the MoPac 8 mile loop, I looked down to see a flat back tire. I'm pretty sure I remember running over the culprit about a mile before. Thankfully, we were close enough to the end that I just walked the bike back to the car.

So, two flats and 11 miles of riding in the heat. Good experience, in my opinion!

1 comment:

Sharanya said...

OMG! Can't believe that's Congress! Take good rest on your vacation. Comforting to know that I wasn't alone doing fartleks uphill in Missouri.. :) I just returned from a very lazy vacation, and that's the hardest part about getting back. Have a good time, though! You deserve after all the hard work you've put in.