The weekend and such

Stoplights

I decided that this was going to be the weekend to give the saturday tri club ride a go. I used to ride all the time with one other person during my first two seasons of tri training, and really had only ridden with a few other people at any given time, so I have found that group riding can mentally psch me out a little, mainly because I think about large packs of cyclists like on the Tour or when I lived out in western MA there were a few pretty hard core cycle groups and on a fairly regular basis I would see double pace lines of cyclist flying by at a zillion miles an hour by my house. So that's what I think of when I think of a 'group' bike ride, hence it freaks me out a little bit. So I had a few nerves showing up. But the truth of the situation was that the large group of 50 or so, got broken into smaller groups of 5-10 ...which was more my size.

We start off, I head to the back figuring that might be a reasonable place to start out. We've gone 1/2 a block. I get stuck at the stop light. Now the group has gone on ahead...they aren't that far away I tell myself...and then I get stuck at the next stop light...again only 1/2 a block away from the first one...after the light changes it becomes apparent that I have lost the group. Now i can't even see the pack at this moment. There were a few stragglers with me so i wasn't completely alone, so I decided 'well ok this would just be sprinting practice' as a few of us tried to catch up to the group. The next 8 or so miles were much of the same, I would get near the group only to get stuck at a stop light when I was within 1/4 mile of joining up. I did finally catch up around mile 8.

I was feeling a little relieved to finally caught the group, and my legs were a little toast by this point so I worried a little bit that the return trip would be notsofun. After I finally caught the group I was relaxing at a stoplight with the group this time (bummer thing about urban riding) and I look over and Paul has caught our group, says hi and quickly passes us as he proceeds on for his 100 mile jaunt.

We reach the turn around point for the 30 milers...the 40 and 50 milers with our group continue up north and I turn around with those heading back. Fortunately I find a few other people who are going the pace that I needed and head back. Despite the first half being a lot of sprinting (which is good for me anyway...right??) it was a lot of fun and I will definitely be making this a habit of mine! Much more fun to ride with other people.

Sunday I was slated to run 6 miles. I started off...sluggishly...it wasn't getting better...i was making stupid excuses to stop...I wanted to turn around...take a nap...do anything else really...and then it happened.

I actually had to stop.

I was a mile away from home, and I was getting a ridiculous blister. The funny thing about the incident was that once I had a reason to stop, I didn't want to even though the run was sucking like no other. I debated the pros and cons of continuing the run. The biggest con I came up with for continuing my run was that since my foot hurt, I was dramatically changing my gait...and this was all on the leg that had all the hip issues that I had JUST been given the OK to go do whatever from my PT. I was confronted with the stark reality that I could screw up everything good that I had been doing with PT by being stubborn and proceeding and I somehow recognized that it wasn't worth the risk of reinjuring my leg and hip. So I turned around and walked home. I got home only to discover I had a hole in my sock at the blister point and that is what caused the trauma. I promptly threw those socks away. I now have Bandaids packed in my water carrying case.

It was a good weekend over all. Yes...more running needs to happen, but it will. I may have even found a running buddy today...so that may workout pretty well.