With my bike still in the shop on Saturday I had to get outside and exercise. I decided to get out and do a longer run. I was actually hoping to get up over 6 miles, but it just wasn't happening. Once the heat started kicking in the thoughts of going longer quickly vanished. The longest runs I have left this year are a couple of 10k's and the 6 miles for the Little Miami, so I feel really good about the run despite not raising my mileage. I did my usual course for the long run. I started out by running back through Meghan's Run and then circling back around down Filager out 222 and back up the Hell Hill that is 132. The key to this run for me is seeing how I recover from the hill, and so far things are looking good. I was able to recover and finish the run at a strong pace. It was a 6 mile run in 52 minutes.
7/30/2006 Bicycling
This was my longest ride of the year, and maybe the hottest ride of the year! I wanted to get out early, around 7:30, but faced a little setback in the form of an exploding tube. I was pumping up my tires and the rear tire suddenly exploded in a loud pop! It literally sounded like a gun going off in the quiet morning. Luckily I had a spare and quickly changed it. I guess that's one benefit of all the issues and flats I've had this year, I've become fairly adept at changing tubes.
Once I got out on the road I was off to a bit of a slow start. The morning was foggy and cool, which was nice, but left me feeling a bit groggy and sluggish. I felt more like cruising and staring off into the fog. It is definitely one of those times where I wished I had a camera with me. Actually I do wish I had a camera to carry with me, because I also got very close to some deer inside of East Fork Park. One of these days I'll get one that I can carry with me. By 10:00 the fog had all burned off and the sun was bright and burning. It made for a tough second half, but well worth the heat to ride.
The ride was a big loop with a couple of little side trips into East Fork State Park. While I was riding in the park there were other people riding and running in preparation for Sunday's East Fork Triathlon & Duathlon. I am very tempted to do this race, but I really just want to take some time off from racing over the next couple of weeks and go into The Buckeye Challenge fresh and ready to race. I might ride over there on Sunday while the race is going on to check things out, but I am going to resist the urge to race.
All in all it was a great ride. It works out perfectly as a course. At about thirty miles there is a place to stop in Williamsburg and refresh with a snack and my new favorite biking break drink. The Starbuck's Frappuccino Coffee drink is 9.5 oz. of energy in a bottle. It is a perfect boost to get me going for the second halfo of the ride. I don't know if it is the best thing to have, but it is delicious and refreshing, especially after drinking lukewarm water and gatorade for an hour and a half.
Odo: 844 miles
Dist: 50.58 miles
Time: 3:03:28
Avg: 16.5 mph
Max: 37.9 mph
Here is an overview of the ride. It was a bit cumbersome and time consuming to map it out with the gmap pedometer, but it is also cool to see the distance that I travelled.
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