Thursday, 18 May 2006

bike and run

Bike 9.6 miles in three legs. Run 3.8 miles. Swim 1000 meters.

I have read you should alternate sprinting and walking. I don't. I have to represss a snort when people ask how my training is going, because while I am sure my performance would be better if I tackled the sports systematically, I don't. So anyway. I ran, and there is a usual turn-around spot on this route so the full distance is four miles. In addition to knowing that I am not a rigorously physiologically correct athlete, I know too that turn-around points are also where I slow to a walk--I do better on loops. So I continued to the next major street, and when I turned there (being forced by traffic rather than an arbitary point), I didn't stop. 3.3 miles at a chugging jog, walk a half mile, and sprint--this is a relative term, of course--another half-mile, then another half-mile cool-down.

This route is along the median of an avenue that deserves the name, since it is in fact lined with trees, even tunneled with trees (elms, and I prefer to be in denial about their fate). The surface is a path of packed dirt, and the trees make it the shadiest route near Dot Org.

Almost an hour after I finished, my pulse was 54 bpm, which is fine. Hail the packed dirt, because my hip doesn't hurt yet either.