Left, Right, Hill

Hi, it’s Laura.

 I finally thought I had some traction in my training. 

Monday's run went off without a hitch. An easy five miler.

After last week's foray into Yonkers, I sat down and studied a map.

There is a trail in Van Cortland Park that I run but it is unpaved in the Bronx.  Once you cross into Westchester, it's paved. I have looked it up several times but just couldn't not figure out how to get there on bike without heading up the unpaved part. My tires would not be able to handle the mud and dirt. Even if I did head up the unpaved road with my bike it’s usually pretty wet and I don't want to get muddy.  I can cover myself with sweat and suntan lotion but not mud.

 As it turned out, by my map studying, I was not that far off in my direction to get there last week just needed to make a few lefts and rights, climb a giant hill, make a few more lefts and rights go down a small hill enter into a private parking lot and VIOLA! There it is.

I heard the guy behind me yelling “hey”, “hey you” and I chose to ignore him and pretended that I didn't hear him since I ride with my music generally pretty loud. I worked far too hard to go to this very lovely, very flat, very long trail and I wasn't giving it up now.  Turns out, you cannot get to the trail from the parking lot after all.  The guy did not follow me into the parking lot. I am guessing that he didn't care that much.  I pulled out my phone from my saddle bag to see how to get there from here. Just two block further down and there is an actual entry.

The phone in the saddle bag is another drama story.  Once the weather turned and I was outside to ride , I realized I had no idea where I was going in this new neighborhood. I needed to use my phone to help me navigate.  At first, instead of listening to music, I would listen to directions in Google maps, smart right? Missed my music so ordered a case that I could use to hold the phone on the aero bars. Great idea. Didn’t fit my phone. I have the 5S and it only accommodates up to the 4S. Back to the old fashioned way of looking at maps as I go. Now I am adding at least 15 minutes to every ride because I have to stop, take out the phone, study the map, forget the direction, pull it back out look again, and then head back on the road.

Left onto Alan P. Sherman way and there it is. Glory! I ride and ride, ecstatic that I now know where I am going and can add the ride to my repertoire. Ride completed.  Tuesday only requires a short swim along with the ride.

Training for a half marathon while training for the triathlon is certainly bringing its own challenges.  This is week is supposed to be a recovery week from tri training but it’s also a building week for half marathon training.  That makes my long run this week nine miles.

 I stress pretty hard over long runs.   24 hours ahead of the run, I start to obsess about the distance.  I know I can run the distance. I have run it before. But something about tackling 8 or 9 or 10 miles is daunting. I have yet to figure out exactly why I drive myself crazy about it.

The worst part is the start of the long run. I am so stressed and jumpy that I starting running at an uncommonly fast pace for me.  I was just over a half mile in and I could barely catch my breath.  I checked my heart rate realized how high it was and made myself walk for a minute to calm down.  When I started up again, I was better but still running faster than my normal pace.  Finally at mile 2.5, I settled into a nice pace to complete the rest of the run.  I tried thinking about why these long runs stress me, I had plenty of time to think about, but nothing really seemed to solve the puzzle.

Let the bike drama continue!  Thursday's forecast was for rain with maybe no rain in the afternoon. Last week I got lucky and the sun came out for a lovely afternoon ride. Today I decided I didn't want to wait and headed to the gym to spin.

If you recall the crank on the spin bike was loose.  My hero husband came down and fixed it for me.  We opened a repair ticket with our building to have them fix it.  I have been riding outside so the repair of the bike was not an issue for me, until it was.

 

When I got to the gym this morning, of course the bike was not fixed.

I marched back up to the apt got my ratchet set and marched back down the gym.

I fixed it.  Three times I fixed it. I was so aggravated. While I was spinning I sent nasty emails to the building manager. Why two weeks have passed and this is still not fixed? I know that I am not the only one that uses the bike. Every time I do go to use it, I need to adjust it back to my size.  Let's just say oodles of calories where burned on that ride this morning. I had to take my frustration out somewhere.  Why not burn a few extra calories?

 As of this writing, I am happy that I didn't wait for the weather to turn because I would still be waiting for the sun to pop out.

One more ride, one more swim and one more run for the week. Phew.

 Laura