Running Chick

This afternoon, James and I met up in Lake Linden and biked to Gay for the Gay Parade.

The ride out was fairly easy, once we got past the enormous hill on the turn to Gay. It took us just under an hour to ride the 13 miles. The ride back to Lake Linden was a bit more of a challenge as it's uphill for about 10 miles, which explains why the ride out was easy. The ride back took 10 minutes longer than the way out.

Ride summary:
26.11 miles in 2:07:19 for an average speed of 12.3 mph.

Josh rode his motorcycle out to join in the festivities. The parade was a hoot as usual.

My favorite entry:


My second favorite:



Josh and James:



Bonus for me, I bought $5 of raffle tickets and I won a $20 gift certificate to the Loading Zone! We blew it all at the Loading Zone after our ride. Easy come, easy go.

I did a zippy five miles tonight followed by 20 minutes of strength training. My first two miles were totally uphill, and were my slowest. The remaining three were downhill/flat and I was able to crank out times in the 10-minute range for those. In all, I was able to average 10:40 miles overall. Not too shabby.

My strength training routine varies from session to session. Tonight I worked on my abs (100 sit-ups on the stability ball), arms (50 push-ups, then bicep, tricep & shoulder work with the 10 lb. weights), back (reverse sit-ups) and legs. Since that was my first strength session since probably April, I'll probably be sore tomorrow. No pain, no gain.

Foot report:

socks - yellow Smartwool micros
tape - big toes, one piece underneath

No blisters, no tender spots.

That's the third day of running with no foot issues. I think I finally found the recipe.

Next up, Six on Saturday. I'm starting to get bored running the same old routes. I think I'll head toward Atlantic Mine and Old Mill Hill. I figure if I go early enough, M-26 will be traffic-free. I was thinking around 6:00 AM ?

Not.

Today I did my first brick workout. Bricks involve running and biking consecutively.

The first part of the brick was the run. 3.25 miles (up the Shopko hill) and back to my place. That damn hill. I still can't make it up all the way, but I was able to make it up a minute faster than I did back in March. My recovery was also faster by two minutes.

The second part of the brick was the bike. 7.65 miles at an average speed of 10.2 mph.

Surprisingly, my legs did okay after all the flogging they took. However, tomorrow and Wednesday will tell the true tale.

The third part of my brick involved picking up a few things from Shopko then the grocery store.

Foot report:

socks - yellow Smartwool micros
tape - big toes, one piece underneath

No blisters, no tender spots.