Boy, if we could do Saturday over, we sure would try to do something different! In our minds, it seemed like we had our Saturday planned just about like weeks past, but something just didn’t click like it has in the past.
We started with a six mile run around the Phelps Grove / MSU area that really didn’t seem much different from off-week runs in the past. We kept a steady, but moderate pace and completed the entire run without walk breaks.
Afterward, we met Sam and Barbara, Mike, and Nicole at the Evans Road C-Store for a trip to Rogersville and back on the bike.
As we headed out, the pace was blistering hit the first series of down-hills on County Line Road. Poor Nicole was wondering what she had gotten into, but we assured her that things would slow down quickly as the tandems started up the hill. From that point, we kept it dialed back, but as we got to Rogersville, I noticed the riding didn’t seem as easy is it should have with the wind at our back.
We took our usual break at Rogersville, and found that it was still pretty pleasant sitting in the shade. There were several cyclists out on the roads, and several were coming and going as we snacked and chatted for a few minutes.
As we mounted up to head back, we felt the pressure of the head-wind we would be facing on the return trip. It wasn’t really very bad, but both Pam and I felt the weakness in our legs and knew that we were not feeling great.
One of the highlights of the return trip was the finding of a glove that some hapless rider had lost. No…wait. That was Pam’s glove. And we found it after back-tracking nearly a mile after Nicole saw the other one blow off the back of the bike and recognized it as the mate of the first one she saw on the road! Grrr….we sent the others on their way and back-tracked, knowing that we could probably catch them at some point.
That was a mistake. After picking up the errant glove, we were now trying to push into the wind with tired legs to catch back up after delaying several minutes. As captain, I should have played that one smarter! My mistake.
Shortly after we caught Sam and Barbara, and Nicole (Mike was way ahead of us all at that point), Nicole dropped a light off her bike, so she had to turn around and get it. Sam and Barbara were a couple hundred feet in front of us and didn’t see that we had stopped, so they kept going as we waited for Nicole.
Chris was out serving water again this week, and we pulled into his driveway to wait. Well, conversation ensued, and by the time we got rolling again, Sam and Barbara were nowhere to be seen.
We finally rolled back to the Jeep with tired legs and 23.25 miles on the bike. Our average speed actually ended up being faster than I expected at about 14.3 mph.
As I reflected on what made us feel so tired this week as opposed to past weeks, I came up with the following possibilities
We ran the entire six miles today instead of the run/walk/run technique we usually use on our long run days.
We had breakfast at Starbucks instead of our normal Panera Bread. The menu was similar, but you never know.
We didn’t have time to sit down and just relax for a few minutes before our bike ride. This ride started away from home, which meant that we needed to get the bike loaded and head out a little quicker.
I didn’t have my usual recovery drink of a 32 oz. Dr. Pepper!
Oh well, we’ll try again another Saturday!
God bless…
TW
