Getting Back into the Swing of Things

Photo: sgym@662, Flickr Creative Commons

After getting my first few runs of the year in, I've realized something: Two and a half months of not running really affects your fitness in the run. It's not in the area of cardio. I been hitting the bike trainer religiously and have worked that system pretty well, and I'm actually running about as fast as I was before I got hurt, a little slower, but not much. It's just that I feel my legs now. For the past two years, I've never been sore. I've never had anything other than general tiredness limit my speed or distance. My second run, a 2-miler after work, left me stiff and sore for two days. My three-miler earlier this week, a run that for more than a year has been a short and easy trot for me, had my thighs burning for most of run even though I was running at a pace that used to be my go-to pace for a comfortable run that worked me out but could be kept up nearly indefinitely. It'll come back. So as long as I go about rebuilding my run base right, I should be fine in a month or two.

Speaking of the bike, I hooked up the Weehoo to my bike last weekend and took the boy on a metric century ride. I've never seen him eat so much and he lasted for the entire 4 and a half hour trip without a single complaint. The only bad part is that even though he has pedals and pedaled from his seat in the bike trailer, the gearing doesn't match up. He can't pedal fast enough to actually take any of the burden off me, so basically, I was his pedicab for 63 miles that day. While he was hyper and running around after the ride, I took a long nap.

I'm also closing in on purchasing my second bike. For the last two years, my plan was to purchase a time trial bike for triathlons. I do a lot of those and the aero position would improve my times, but I'm not currently super competitive and I don't think I'll ever be. There won't ever be a reason for me to worry about the bike leg that much that I'm need to spend $1,500 (or more) just to cut a few minutes from my bike time (and that much only at the longer distances I don't currently do). If that were the only problem, it wouldn't be a problem. I'd just get the tri bike and race faster. The thing is,it's not a particularly comfortable position and unlike a fast road bike that's just as fun to ride around on roads as it is to race (just more expensive and lighter), the tri bike is only good for racing.

So I'm thinking of getting a mountain bike instead. I like riding a bike. I like hiking. There are off-road triathlons that I currently can't race because I don't have a fat-tire bike. I think this is the way I'm going.

After that, I can start worrying about saving for a tri-bike.