Sunday, July 26, 2009

Riding Blind




If you read my post yesterday then you know that I missed my long ride/run because of the weather. I could not bear the thought of missing it for the entire week so I decided to squeeze it in today. Saturday is my long day because I don't work and there is no church. In order to get in the long effort today I knew it meant an early start. Church starts at 9:00 and we live about 15 minutes away. I also wanted to be back in time to eat something, shower, and help Tiffany with the kids.

With the bad weather out of the way the next obstacle would be the morning darkness. The sun does not rise until 6:30, and I set the alarm for 5:00. Running in the dark is not a problem but I was planning to ride first. Fortunately I live right next to a 73 mile bike trail. Therefore, I only have to worry about being able to see and don't have to worry about people being able to see me. I have a head lamp my dad got me for one of our hiking trips and decided to attach it to my bike with some zip ties. I took it for a spin and it worked perfectly.

At 5:00 I awoke and set the snooze for 5:14. At 5:14 I got up and went downstairs where everything was ready for me. I ate a bagel, chugged some water, and got dressed. By 5:25 I was on the road. One thing I had not planned for was thick fog. As I turned onto the bike trail I realized I could only see a few feet in front of me. The trail is straight and flat so it really was not much concern just extremely creepy. It is through the middle of the woods so it was really dark and there were plenty of rabbit and deer that I stirred up along the way. After being on the bike for about 45 minutes it slowly started to become light.

I rode my bike for 1:36:00, and covered just over 30 miles. Then I parked at my house and transitioned for about 2 minutes. Would have been faster but Tiffany and the kids saw me and came out to talk for a second. About 3/4 mile into the run both of my sides started hurting and I was beginning to think I would have to stop. Immediately I thought to myself, "you did not get up at 5:14 to only run 3/4 of a mile, pull it together." That is exactly what I did. I focused on my breathing and was quickly running very comfortably. I ended up running 7.3 miles at a pace of 7:39.

I also included a picture of my new tri shorts because I am excited about them. They were much more comfortable than running shorts while riding the bike and I really like the compression aspect of them while running.

Today's workout
Ride 30 Miles
1:36:00
18.8 MPH

Run 7.3 Miles
55:53
7:39 Pace

4 comments:

macnic said...

That's dedication! I've yet to fit Sunday runs and Church into the same day, mainly because my husband doesn't go to Church with me and leaving him alone for that long with a 2.5 year old just isn't fair (nor is taking that same kid to a non-child program Church).

Well done!

Anonymous said...

wow, very good jason.
-carlos

Lindsay said...

very impressive! glad you had the never-quit attitude and got it done. i like the reasoning for pushing through the run - didn't get up at 5:14 for nothing!

Glenn Jones said...

Jason - nice to see you back!