Blown Away

Since my darling wife gave me a nasty cold for Thanksgiving, I am not feeling up to any intense workout. So instead of the planned Thanksgiving morning 60 miler+, I went for a short 23 miler at a low heart rate pace (15.8mph, 128HR avg). Not sure what I will do on Friday through Sunday and I am travelling again all next week through the weekend. Missing out on some good training, bummer.

Good thing to that it was not a long ride, since the winds were 25mph. This means that going in three out of four directions was difficult. Crosswinds are especially annoying. At least I did not get blown in front of a car. Not that there were too many cars on the road. I also was able to debut my full winter riding gear of tights, gloves, wind/rain jacket.

While riding nice and easy, I took the opportunity to look around for once and crossed paths with many running haunts. Not very many runners out on the Seabrook trails and none in Pine Gully Park at 10 am. I rode across the start line for the USA 10 miler and over the bridge that crosses the tunnel to the Lunar Rendezvous start line. I learned that Boondoggles opens at 7 pm on Thanksgiving night (alas I missed it), that the Hooters girl 2008 calander is up for sale (I don't think I'll be getting one in my Christmas stocking), and that there is a Go Texans pelican at the corner of NASA Rd 1 and 146 (Go Browns!)

Looks like the BARC men did really well at the TXU Turkey trot, with Chris Bittinger, Rudy Rocha and Stephen Milford all winning their age group, while Ronnie Schreiber was second. Rudy was second place overall and is really running well this fall.

I also had time on my ride to think a little bit about my objectives. My leg does not seem to improve, although the problem has been isolated to the outside portion (not back or inside) of the leg, running along the edge of the tendon for 2 to 3 inches above the ankle. It does not look promising that I will be running competitively for the EP5k and it does not look that good for TIR. It's annoying, since I could be running very strong if not for the leg. I know that since it was no big deal, other than aggravating my leg, to run a 32 minute 4 miler last week without any training. I'll go back to the chiro on Monday for some PT and a pep talk.

So back to the objectives. I can be a patient man and have a long term view. I can cycle all through 2008 and 2009 if needed. Perhaps I will do the Triple Bypass Ride, 120 miles in one day over three mountain passes in Colorado in July, covering over 10000 feet in elevation on the ride. That is certainly a crazy enough goal. Olya Perevalova gave me an accupuncture reference that I may try. She said this is the only thing that worked for her achilles problem. I will do some yoga every day for flexibility. My long term objective is to run competitively in 2010 when I graduate to another age group and a 3:45 BQ time. In the meantime, maybe I'll stick to low heart rate running once a week.