I had a great weekend last weekend - things may slowly be looking up for me in the health and training department, but I still plan to be walking on egg shells for quite a while longer.
Saturday morning several of us headed to Katy Mills to do the Puddle for the Ducks organized ride. The route we were going to do was 46 miles and I wanted 50, so before the ride started I did 2 loops of parking lot at Katy Mills - it actually worked out quite nicely! No one is in that parking lot at 7am on a Saturday. Shellie, Augie and I all pretty much stayed together through the ride. It wasn't that bad until the last 15 miles or so. We were heading due east and the wind was coming straight out of the south...at 24 mph! We complain about wind a lot, and it is windy here a lot in the Spring, but honestly it is usually in the 15-20mph range (which is bad enough!). Sustained winds of 24mph over any length of time is pretty high...nearing Arizona conditions! A cross wind that heavy was pretty tolling on our bodies, but at the same time our speed did not suffer too much (and I am well aware 24 mph crosswinds are far better than 24 mph head winds).
The "good news" about this ride is that my recent issues did not seem to slow me down much, at least in comparison to other people I usually ride with. I was afraid I'd get back to biking and be miles and miles behind my usual riding buddies because of my heart rate issues. So far, it does not look like that is the case, which is wonderful news.
After the ride, Jon and I went to Beaumont for the night. I had an early birthday dinner with my parents at Carrabba's and ate waaaaay too much. Oh well. I got a great night's sleep which was much needed and deserved. We went to church and lunch and then headed back to Houston. We set out to do our "long run" for the weekend at 5:30 Sunday evening....can you say we put it off a little? It was only 8 miles, so not too bad, but you still have a high chance of it not happening when you wait that long to do it!
I actually ended up having a fabulous run. It was warm and a bit muggy but I still had my fastest HR Zone 2 run since all this started. I headed east from the park and was going to come back after a few miles and run around the park a few times, but I again encountered some crazy wind. I had a Forrest Gump like moment and decided I did not want to have to run into the wind again once I had it at my back, so I headed almost 4 miles out before I turned around. Of course it seemed like the wind was gone by the time I turned around...oh well. I have a general policy of no complaining about wind on the run because I know how much worse it is on the bike, but after spitting dirt that was blown in my face and getting sandblasted on the jogging trail, I complained a little. Turns out I had good reason to complain...sustained winds for Sunday evening were 28 mph out of the SE! That is crazy wind for a Sunday night in February in the middle of the city.
Anyway, around mile 5.5 I was absolutely bouncing off the imaginary walls of my run because I was so happy with how it was going. Then that wasn't the best idea because I had a hard time keeping my heart rate down after that. I was just too excited and kept running too fast...then - BEEP!!! (my lovely reminder I'm way ahead of myself). So I walk and rinse and repeat. I ended up with a 10:54 average for the 8 miles which I will certainly take. That is close to my normal long run pace before all of this happened, but I was running with a much higher heart rate then. So either I'm getting better, or my patience and persistence at this low heart rate thing is paying off, or a combination of both, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I don't hit any more major roadblocks.
Saturday morning several of us headed to Katy Mills to do the Puddle for the Ducks organized ride. The route we were going to do was 46 miles and I wanted 50, so before the ride started I did 2 loops of parking lot at Katy Mills - it actually worked out quite nicely! No one is in that parking lot at 7am on a Saturday. Shellie, Augie and I all pretty much stayed together through the ride. It wasn't that bad until the last 15 miles or so. We were heading due east and the wind was coming straight out of the south...at 24 mph! We complain about wind a lot, and it is windy here a lot in the Spring, but honestly it is usually in the 15-20mph range (which is bad enough!). Sustained winds of 24mph over any length of time is pretty high...nearing Arizona conditions! A cross wind that heavy was pretty tolling on our bodies, but at the same time our speed did not suffer too much (and I am well aware 24 mph crosswinds are far better than 24 mph head winds).
The "good news" about this ride is that my recent issues did not seem to slow me down much, at least in comparison to other people I usually ride with. I was afraid I'd get back to biking and be miles and miles behind my usual riding buddies because of my heart rate issues. So far, it does not look like that is the case, which is wonderful news.
After the ride, Jon and I went to Beaumont for the night. I had an early birthday dinner with my parents at Carrabba's and ate waaaaay too much. Oh well. I got a great night's sleep which was much needed and deserved. We went to church and lunch and then headed back to Houston. We set out to do our "long run" for the weekend at 5:30 Sunday evening....can you say we put it off a little? It was only 8 miles, so not too bad, but you still have a high chance of it not happening when you wait that long to do it!
I actually ended up having a fabulous run. It was warm and a bit muggy but I still had my fastest HR Zone 2 run since all this started. I headed east from the park and was going to come back after a few miles and run around the park a few times, but I again encountered some crazy wind. I had a Forrest Gump like moment and decided I did not want to have to run into the wind again once I had it at my back, so I headed almost 4 miles out before I turned around. Of course it seemed like the wind was gone by the time I turned around...oh well. I have a general policy of no complaining about wind on the run because I know how much worse it is on the bike, but after spitting dirt that was blown in my face and getting sandblasted on the jogging trail, I complained a little. Turns out I had good reason to complain...sustained winds for Sunday evening were 28 mph out of the SE! That is crazy wind for a Sunday night in February in the middle of the city.
Anyway, around mile 5.5 I was absolutely bouncing off the imaginary walls of my run because I was so happy with how it was going. Then that wasn't the best idea because I had a hard time keeping my heart rate down after that. I was just too excited and kept running too fast...then - BEEP!!! (my lovely reminder I'm way ahead of myself). So I walk and rinse and repeat. I ended up with a 10:54 average for the 8 miles which I will certainly take. That is close to my normal long run pace before all of this happened, but I was running with a much higher heart rate then. So either I'm getting better, or my patience and persistence at this low heart rate thing is paying off, or a combination of both, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I don't hit any more major roadblocks.
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