Monday, January 7, 2008

Whoooosh!

Thats how I felt at the beginning of my ride today, flying like the wind! Whooooosh! I had a strong wind behind me and was cruising along around 20-25 MPH for the first part of my ride, it was great!

At one point I was on a really secluded stretch of road, the scene looked as though it came straight off of a post card. Rolling hills, huge grassy fields with horses running around on either side, and thousands upon thousands of birds connecting the two fields. When I got fairly close, the entire mass of birds rose up and took off, whooooosh! Times like this really remind me why I love riding in Kentucky!

Then I turned. Whoooosh! That was the sound of Mother Nature trying to knock me into traffic with an insanely strong wind. Luckily, I managed not to get turned into road kill.

I turned again. Whoooosh! This time Mother Nature was trying to tell me "Go home, you shouldn't play with me today!" But all I could hear was: Whoooosh! So I pressed on, since its the only thing I knew how to do.

I made one last turn. And yep. You guessed it: Whooooosh! This time Mother Nature was doing everything she could to make sure I ate ditch. She saw me on my shiny red bike, with my fancy new pedals. Its obvious she was jealous, but I stayed the course; having the wind at my side was worlds better than riding straight into it!

Whooooosh! Twenty one miles in the bank! Here's the stats:

Distance: 21.05 miles (Twice as far as yesterday)
Time: 1:14:45
Speed: 16.9 mph (But held the same speed!)

All in all, the ride felt great. I still managed not to fall, although I had a really hard time getting clipped in at an intersection that was on a hill. My second foot just didn't want to get in there; I'll get the hang of it soon enough!

Finally, I've been slacking on responding to comments, so here goes:

Amy - I'm planning to do a few sprint & olympic triathlons early on in the season, I just haven't made any official yet. I started looking at them, and theres just so many I'll probably pick one the week before it happens.

Jess - Nope, the whole pizza didn't fit on the plate; that would never fill me up!

SLB - Yep, this pedaling system has some float in it so my knees should be safe. Biking is actually something that keeps my knees working right; it worked like a miracle cure when they started bothering me this summer.

Marcy - I think biking helps my running. I made a habit of riding every Monday this summer, and it helped me quite a bit; my legs just felt stronger, especially on hills! And even if that was only in my head, you can't deny that its helping my aerobic fitness.

Christine - I'm in grad school for Computer Science. Be careful with that past tense, I'm far from being done!

6 comments:

Bill Carter said...

All you have to do is read about 1 line of this blog to see why you love the bike. There is very little "whooooosh" when I run and a lot more "uggggggh". You are making me want to be an ex runner.

Glad to hear the biking is going so well... pretty impressive times also.

Marcy said...

For some reason this post scared me LOL. Maybe a bike is NOT a good thing for me. The whole idea of "eating ditch" gave me the heebie jeebies.

Justin said...

Hey man, I was passing the time and reading random running blogs and came across yours. We're similar to each other...I'm also coming back from injury (IT band) and looking to go sub-3 in the marathon. And I wanna do a tri in the near future...you're ahead of me on that part because I don't have a bike yet. But it all definitely looks like fun.

Anyway, good blog, keep up the good training!

Jess said...

The "whoosh" effect does sound exciting, but it still doesn't convince me to get on the bike.

Nancy said...

That's a lot of whoooooosh-i-ness.

Great ride. I would be so dead!

Amy@RunnersLounge said...

I am so jealous! I can't wait to get back out in the open air and do a little "whooshing" again. The stationary bike just doesn't pack the same enjoyment - even though I read alot of books.

PS - I agree - Biking does make you a faster runner!