I miss my bike

Today I drove out to Great Falls and rode my bike along the canal. I had a pass to get in the park from taking Krissy out there this past weekend. I decided to take advantage and doing something I rarely do: leave work before 6 pm and drive over to MD for a bike ride. I was on my bike by 6:15 pm and off! I headed West towards Seneca with the thought of turning around at Swain's lock and then heading the other direction for a while. However, my mind is ambitious and gets ahead of me sometimes so I set Seneca as my goal. Plus there is an aqueduct there made of sandstone that I wanted to check out. This is quite possibly the same sandstone that we just had delivered at work that I may be using in my research. I knew I would be cutting it close to dark by riding all the way to Seneca (8.5 miles). I rode hard and fast. On the way back, it was getting dark and I became worried I wouldn't make it. Thankfully as the sun sets, the light fades gradually and I made it. Last week, I left the office one night after dark (about 8:30 pm) on my bike and had to walk my bike part of the way because it was so dark that I couldn't see 5 feet in front of me. That gave me a little scare so there was no way in hell that I wanted to be caught on the towpath, between a river and a canal with trees everywhere in pitch black. Anyways, I did 17 miles in a little under 80 minutes. I was happy with that since I was riding on dirt/gravel and I don't have toe clips. I figured that I was going about 12 3/4 mph which provides a good cardio workout. With all my running this year, I have neglected my bike. Even though I was scheduled to run 5 miles today, I am glad I rode my bike. I miss it. It is a good change of pace.

This past weekend I ran my longest run yet: 20 miles. I have made it to the peak of my training! It feels good and my confidence in strong. I had a good run. We started at Seneca (mile 22.8) and ran to Fletcher's (mile 3). Ok, so it's 19.8 miles to be exact. My time was 3:39 and I am happy with that. Once I got past the first 10 miles, I walked a couple of minutes every 5 miles to simulate walking through aid stations during the marathon. I found this to help break up the run. In fact, once I got in the last 10 miles, the time seemed to pass fast and I kept questioning whether I had calculated the distance right. It just didn't feel like I could have already covered almost 20 miles. The majority of the distance I was on my own. I would rather stay with my friends in a way but running on my own is good mental prep for the marathon. At one point I caught up to a couple of older gentleman. They asked who my sponsor was and that put a smile on my face. One guy saw my Music City 1/2 marathon hat and said I must be sponsored by the Grand Ole Opry. That brought on an even bigger smile. We chatted for a while and then I went on. They are training for the Philadelphia marathon. They recommended that I check out the end of the Marine Corps course before the race. They said that when you see the finish you think you are close but you still have a long ways to go and it is very demoralizing. There is also a hill at the end. I ran into those guys again when they finished their run and found out one of them is an ultramarathoner. I wonder if I will ever try one of those.

Yesterday (Monday), I ran 4.5 miles in McLean. The weather is amazing right now, clear, low humidity and highs of 70s. Perfect.