MAKING PROGRESS

Sunday's run was accomplished outside, just missing another hard rain. After Saturday's 4 hour indoor bike marathon, I wasn't even sure if I could run the next day but soon found out it wasn't all that bad. The hardest part was finding a route that took me far enough to get in 2 hours of running without looping around the neighborhood endlessly and didn't take me through all the flooded areas. I finally compromised by running from the gym (downtown), going north to another park along the river. I decided to follow the race course from last September's 10 miler, only changing slightly one loop and back over one bridge to avoid running on a street with lots of potholes and just as many puddles. This way I could loop back over the bridge and run on the river path until it ended for a couple of miles, and pick it up again later in the park. Road construction also caused me to make another detour, but nothing out of the way.

The river was high again and running pretty fast from the hard rains. There were ducks everywhere in every puddle I came upon. By the time I got to the river park, there were also the Canadian geese everywhere honking at each other, fighting over something. I was surprised that I saw only one biker and a couple of other runners. Halfway through the park, just before crossing a bridge over a pond area, I could see the path was completely submerged under water. Change of course here! I went the other way, on the roadway, but it is in bad shape with broken concrete and puddles everywhere, forcing me up on the soggy grass a few times and even using the concrete parking barriers as a bridge over some of the worst areas. And naturally, there's always one jackass who has to come flying through there in their car, splashing everything and anyone nearby. Then he made a loop through the park and came back and did it again. Jerk! He looked like he was pretty oblivious to what he was doing, but get a clue buddy!

At one hour, I turned back, actually having reached the end of my planned destination at the one hour mark. When I turned back though, my right hip started bothering me, forcing me to stop and stretch. I haven't had this since last fall, so I suspect it was from the hard bike ride the day before, being bent over aera on the bike for so long. I'm going to have to watch that, because it bothered me the whole way back.

It stayed cloudy the entire time I was out, but you could see some bright spots in the clouds and the trip back was with the wind behind me most of the time so I got pretty warm. I had dressed in tights, 2 wickaway shirts, my running vest, gloves, and a headband, but finally had to take the gloves off for the last couple of miles. And everything was pretty much saturated not only from sweat but from the humidity.

I actually got back to the start 2 minutes faster, so spent that time walking for 2 minutes. Then it was time for the swim. Sometime after getting done with the run, the rain started again, so I lucked out.

I had a 1 hour swim scheduled and after stretching out the hip/back got in the pool, somewhat reluctantly since I really did not want to do it. However, I came up with a solution to keep me from getting impatient and cutting things short or being totally bored. I usually count all my laps, because its a short pool and the only way to keep track is counting. But after I thought about it, I know approximately how far I swim for one hour so there is no real reason to have to count every lap as well as every stroke. Nothing is more tedious than counting laps endlessly. So I just decided, swim for an hour. Don't keep track. Count it as 1.25 miles plus and add the plus to the next swim (to count for our swim challenge). I stopped every 15 minutes for a drink, stopping for less than 20 seconds each time. And while I did start getting a little impatient the last 15 minutes, I still was able to push through that boredom and impatience for the last few minutes. Done!

Weekend workouts then totalled 7 hours: 4 hours on the bike; 2 hours running; 1 hour swimming. I wasn't exhausted or totally wiped out. I could walk both days afterward. And I slept pretty good both nights, which is always a problem for me after long workouts. I feel a lot more confident too in what I can do.

This weekend I get to do it all over again!