Trail Note
It's spring, and I'm trying to get this sad body into summer cycling and running shape.
Saturday: The last few weeks I've planned on starting to build up to longer runs on Saturdays, and each week I wimp out and do a short, 3 - 5 mile run. This week I ran the Queen Anne loop (my usual around the block run), but this time I ran it backwards (counter-clockwise) and added a few blocks to the route to make it about 4 miles. It's amazing how different a run can be when you just do it in the opposite direction. All the places that are normally easy (slightly downhill) are hard and vice versa. The views are dramatically different, too. Running along the west side of the hill, right as the sun was starting to set on a clear afternoon, the view of the Olympics was amazing. It was a good run, although not as long or hilly as I should have done.
Sunday: We biked from home to and around Mercer Island and back. It's a beautiful ride, along Lake Washington, past amazing houses, cherry trees all in bloom, making the scenery a study of green and pink and blue. We had to cross the I-90 bridge to get to and from the island, which I hate. There was a stiff breeze from the SE, making the ride across the narrow bike lane particularly nerve-racking for someone who hates hights, narrow bike lanes, and riding close to 60 mph traffic. We were pretty tired by the time we finished the Mercer Island loop, so instead of riding back along the Lake to the University of Washington and home, we took a shorter, less pasturally scenic route through downtown. As we rode through the International District, we passed shop signs in dozens of languages, and delicious smells of exotic cooking (we were pretty hungry by this point). We made it home, tired and creaky. Since we were riding for almost 3 hours with very brief stops, I think we must have riden around 35 miles. (We did the 33 mile Chilly Hilly 2 weeks ago in under 3 hours, with longer rests, and it had similar hill-factor).
Overall, I'm not in the shape that I was last summer, especially when it comes to biking. Not only do I get tired faster, I'm not as comfortable on the bike. I'm still remembering all of those little skills and nuances that one only gets when one spends a lot of time biking, especially in the city.
It's spring, and I'm trying to get this sad body into summer cycling and running shape.
Saturday: The last few weeks I've planned on starting to build up to longer runs on Saturdays, and each week I wimp out and do a short, 3 - 5 mile run. This week I ran the Queen Anne loop (my usual around the block run), but this time I ran it backwards (counter-clockwise) and added a few blocks to the route to make it about 4 miles. It's amazing how different a run can be when you just do it in the opposite direction. All the places that are normally easy (slightly downhill) are hard and vice versa. The views are dramatically different, too. Running along the west side of the hill, right as the sun was starting to set on a clear afternoon, the view of the Olympics was amazing. It was a good run, although not as long or hilly as I should have done.
Sunday: We biked from home to and around Mercer Island and back. It's a beautiful ride, along Lake Washington, past amazing houses, cherry trees all in bloom, making the scenery a study of green and pink and blue. We had to cross the I-90 bridge to get to and from the island, which I hate. There was a stiff breeze from the SE, making the ride across the narrow bike lane particularly nerve-racking for someone who hates hights, narrow bike lanes, and riding close to 60 mph traffic. We were pretty tired by the time we finished the Mercer Island loop, so instead of riding back along the Lake to the University of Washington and home, we took a shorter, less pasturally scenic route through downtown. As we rode through the International District, we passed shop signs in dozens of languages, and delicious smells of exotic cooking (we were pretty hungry by this point). We made it home, tired and creaky. Since we were riding for almost 3 hours with very brief stops, I think we must have riden around 35 miles. (We did the 33 mile Chilly Hilly 2 weeks ago in under 3 hours, with longer rests, and it had similar hill-factor).
Overall, I'm not in the shape that I was last summer, especially when it comes to biking. Not only do I get tired faster, I'm not as comfortable on the bike. I'm still remembering all of those little skills and nuances that one only gets when one spends a lot of time biking, especially in the city.
posted by Tricia at 8:39 AM
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