Cycling - or How to end your training with one stupid decision!
It was extremely freezing (that's freezing only to the extreme for the kids) at 10 F this morning when I headed out on my bike. With the windchill it was probably more like 1. It was layering time as I put on a layer of skiing tights under my cycling tights, two pairs of socks, a tight wicking shirt covered by a zip up up pullover covered by a wind breaker. I had a pair of thin cotton gloves under my lobster claw riding gloves for my hands. The head was covered by a balaclava type of head covering probably made for skiing that I got from my in-laws. I was a bit skeptical about using it at first because I wasn't sure that it would fit under my helmet, but it has turned out to be one of the best pieces of winter riding equipment second only to the lobster gloves.
I took it pretty easy on the ride, as I just wanted to get some mileage in with no real emphasis on speed. Toward the end of the ride I was cruising through a neighboring subdivision and edging toward the 20 mile mark. I thought that would be a nice round number on which to end the ride, but I'm probably going to be about a mile short if I continued on my current route. I needed to find a side road here in the subdivision so I wouldn't have to go down the hill near our house and backup just to get in the last mile. Okay, maybe an extra hill would be good for me, but on a day when the temp is hovering just above single digits and my toes and face are approaching numb going down hill seemed even less appealing than coming back up the hill.
As I was dreading a windy downhill I came upon a road that looked about a 1/2 mile long which would be perfect. Maybe the frost had seeped into my brain, or maybe the cold air wasn't supplying enough oxygen to my brain, but even though the distance was perfect it was snow covered. It was not only snow covered, but probably ice covered underneath. Instead of avoiding the snow and ice covered road at all costs one side of my brain said "this looks fun" while the other side of my brain was having visions of broken limbs and a broken bike. The "this looks fun" side won out as I plowed on to the snowy road on my road bike. I made it all the way down and 3/4 of the way back. It was on that last 1/4 that I hit a patch of exposed ice and my bike suddenly became a two wheeled bobsled. My brain immediately cleared, and I realized just how dumb this was. It was too late though as my bike ditched one way as I jumped the opposite direction out of my clipless pedals.
Thankfully I came out of the incident mostly unscathed, and my bike was fine. I was mostly unscathed, but I did strain my back a little bit on the left side. Fortunately it was nothing that some couch time with some ice and heat with a dose of ibuprofen couldn't take care of, but this is a lesson for me. One of my worst fears when it comes to all the work I'm putting in for the marathon is that I'll get 2 months or 3 months in and get injured making all the work for nothing.
Dist: 20.11 miles
Time: 1:25.12
Avg: 14.1 mph
Max: 31.1 mph
Short Recovery Run
At the beginning of the run my feet were freezing. It was as if someone had secretly replaced my actual feet with wooden blocks. It was kind of hard to get my shoes on my feet as my feet were numb, and the thick socks didn't help so much. For the first 1/2 mile my feet felt like two wood blocks tied to my ankles. After that they warmed up and loosened up, and they got on back to feeling like feet again. It was a solid 3.3 miles that took 30:25 for a 9:13 pace.
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