On the Road Again

Two days in a row this weekend I was outside and it's awesome. Well - it's awesome right now, here on my couch, under a blanket with a nice hot cup of coffee by my side.

Yesterday morning I had to do another field test. This is a form of torture where one find out if or to what extent fitness has improved since the last time the test was run. In the case of a cyclist it's a 3-mile time trial. The course I picked it out in Montgomery County on a road that I thought had low traffic. I was wrong. It's not high traffic, but it's not low. And by no means are those motorists cyclists-friendly as I was reminded yesterday.

On my way to the course I continually noted the snow on the side of the road. That's right: snow. It was 30 degrees and we had flurries the night before. As I warmed up I found there was really nowhere for me to go if someone really wanted to ride close to me - once I hit the white stripe it was all snow. I say all this to preface the fact that I ran the course 30 seconds slower than I did the first time I did the course. Oddly enough even though it was slower overall, other factors (heart rate) indicate my fitness has improved.

I'm really happy with that. I loaded the field tests as well as my warm up and I can see how it's improved. Although I did freak out about going slower at first - calls from my coach and some text messages put things into perspective. I was also really happy that I got up and out of the house and outside for the workout. Not that watching movies inside on the trainer is a bad thing, but I don't ride to watch movies.

So this morning I knew I had a shorter run - 30 minutes. With a slight drizzle and cold many runners would have opted for the treadmill - but not me. I decided to run outside. Earlier this week I had run outside and it had worked really well. Because I've figured out I need to hear my stride, running outside is really helpful. So, I walked the dog and headed back out.

The beginning of the run is uphill - a great warm up (note: sarcasm). By the time I got to the main road I was warmed up and ready for the strides. In the middle of the first stride, I ran by the local McDonalds. That's not the best smell first thing in the morning when you're running, let me tell ya. Anyway, the run felt fantastic. My form felt easy, effortless really. I didn't feel like my breathing was labored - it wasn't a struggle. I felt like my feet were landing right where they needed to - in the midfoot. The foot-roll felt great. There wasn't a noticeable difference between the two feet, I didn't feel a stomping on the right versus a light landing on the left. Whereas I've been hesitant to run on asphalt and sidewalks it seems to have been what I needed. The other thing is I ran in different shoes... who knows what made the difference. Does it matter? I'm on the road again... and really happy. :)