I set out to meet ‘the gang’ this morning, as I do nearly every Saturday. But ah, the hazards of nice weather, the pace was a bit quicker than normal. We ran and chatted, about a variety of topics but also of “what next”. Nils and Asha are off to Hawaii in a few weeks, I’m doing the Buckeye Trail 50K and Doug seems to be considering it. There was talk of Meredith and Dave doing the half-Ironman in July. Doug has done a few duathlons and said he look into some races for the summer. So I told him to let me know..
We finished our 7 mile loop, and most people were done for the day. We’d gone a bit faster than I expected (7:56 mm), so I decided that was enough for me. Yet, it was so nice out.. how should I spend the rest of my morning?
Well, I can never enjoy nice weather unless I’m doing something. So I packed up my bike, a change of clothes and my camelbak, and headed outta town. When I was commuting to Dayton, I’d often stop by Yellow Springs on my way home, and run either on the trails at John Bryan State Park or on the bike path. I decided to see what this bike path was like on the mode of transportation for which it was intended.
So far I’ve only biked in town, generally on city streets with traffic lights every few minutes. The bike path was a great, fun experience. I gave the ole aerobars a try, and although I wasn’t quite “flying”, I felt pretty good! Yellow Springs has the bike path run right through it, so first I went one direction. After just shy of 7 miles, the route ran into a highway. I think there was a way to follow it a bit further and get back on the bike path, but instead I turned around, cruised through my starting point and kept going. The route was really nice because unlike a bike path in town, there were very few walkers and runners, and really only a handful of other cyclists. All in all, I rode for 21.5miles in 1:20:44, which is an average 16mph. It was actually quite different than the stopping and go-ing in the city!
Oh no, not done yet! For old times sake I had to go run the trails at John Bryan State Park. I was amused to find that after biking, I just didn’t really want to lift my legs very high! I wouldn’t say they were sore at all, it just took awhile before I managed to get back into “run” mode. I did another 5 miles on the trails, at a significantly slower pace. By this time, I was definitely ready to call it a day and grab something to eat!
I wandered back into town and picked up a fantastic sandwich, iced tea and water and enjoyed the sun for a bit. I feel great, although we’ll see if there are any physical repercussions tomorrow! Right now, however, I feel good and healthy and satisfied. There is just something about a great workout that leaves me feeling happy with the world…
