Don't Run . . .

. . . unless you stole something or somebody is chasing you. That's my usual policy on running. A policy which I blatantly and egregiously violated on Saturday by participating in the Chilly Cheeks Duathalon. I guess if you are following the letter of the law, I was being chased . . . by a lot of people. I started in the seventh wave of 10 participants each and passed 58 of 60 riders in front of me and the guy who finished just in front of me ran a lot faster than me, passing me in the last half mile to erase a five minute deficit created on the bike.

It would have been nice to have somebody near me on the run so I could have paced myself a little quicker. Having run an 18:30 5k when following somebody else, I'm pretty sure I could have done quite a bit better than the 6:55 mile pace I ran. I'm not going to lie, my legs felt nothing less than "silly" just after getting my shoes on and heading out on the run from the transition area. I felt like I was running through peanut butter or so I imagine (chunky for sure, not smooth . . . peanut butter that is).

All in all, I'd chalk the experience up as an amusing one. The crowd at a multi-sport event is pretty funny. Cool that they are all generally nicer, more supportive, etc., but the dork factor, especially among the males is huge! It is worse than your average 35+ Cat 3 field. The women are far less horrifying than your average gaggle of female cyclists and many seemed down right polite, if not pleasant. I didn't hear any of them yelling at each other, using four-letter expletives that even I could never get away with using in any sort of company, even on a construction site! Oh yeah, and just to reiterate, running is dumb.

In an effort to try and regain normal sensations in the legs after my four mile run, I got out and about on the town on the ridin' around town bicycle to meet friends out for the evening. That was probably the best decision of the weekend. It was a nice evening for a ride and it did loosen things up nicely. I waited around forever on Sunday morning for the temperature to creep above 40 degrees so I could get out for a cruiser with the Pinkertons and others. The legs felt about as I expected, but I was able to ride up Lookout a little harder than I expected.

Hopefully by this point in your reading adventure, the song below has loaded sufficiently, go ahead and press play . . .



On the way back to my house, we spotted this fine vehicle parked on the street with a for sale sign. Sign of the times I suppose, but they for sale sign said "house for sale" as opposed to car/vehicle/van. It is what it is, but if you are looking to downsize, this might be the vehi . . . er, house for you.



Let me know if you want the number, I can send it along.