Following the Butterfly

Sunday evening was me time as my wife and both kids were in Vacation Bible School (VBS). I got them safely off and then quickly changed and got my bike stuff together and then off to the beach.

It was a great night – traffic was not too bad and there was NO wind. All the flags were hanging straight down – no wind at all. I wanted to get at least 20 miles done and would have really liked to get 25. I did about 3 miles on the small ring and then changed into the big ring and was tooling along at around 17.5 miles/hour. I was feeling really good, my legs felt strong and my heart rate was right where I wanted it and then… she passed me…

I don’t know her but I love her. She was on a Giant road bike, she was blond, she was wearing black biking shorts and a green sports top, and had a butterfly tattoo right in the middle of her lower back. She actually apologized as she passed me! I quickly realized – this was my chance to draft a stronger biker! I put my wheel on hers, concentrated on not loosing the butterfly and oh my, what a ride. We were averaging just over 20 to the south end of the island, made the turn around and I stayed with her back to the stoplight (a total of about 4 miles). I lost her in traffic and could not make up the distance (I hate traffic lights) as we went to the north end of the island.

I tried to speak to her at the north end as we both were trying to re-hydrate but she took off before I could get a chance to say thanks for a great ride.

I ended up with 24 miles by the time I got back to my car and still managed to beat the family home from VBS.

Hills, those glorious hills!

Hills seem to be a reoccurring theme with my running workouts lately. Living in Wilmington – hills are not much of an issue unless you specifically seek them out. Well in the last three weeks – I have done 3 hard hill workouts.

I was in West Virginia/Pennsylvania for my wife’s family reunion and got in a great run. I wanted to do an easy 4 miler, should take right at 40-44 minutes at AC pace – maybe here in Wilmington but not there. My out and back course tackled 3 hills on the way out and then I had to run back. My time was just over 50 minutes – damn!! One of the hills, on the way back, was 0.5 miles long and I climbed what felt like Everest in terms of altitude.

I have started running with Tom in the morning – to get around the summer heat – so I have had a chance to run something other than the track workouts. Last week we did Summer Rest Road. It is a nice 1.5 mile loop with a 500 m portion with a nice steady climb then some gentle rollers before the last 400 m being flat. It was my first morning workout and I was a little dehydrated – my excuses because I sucked big wind during the run. I did a 1.5 mile warm up run and then we did 3 loops (tempo pace, charge hill easy loop, tempo pace). The first tempo run I was within 10 seconds of my pace (13 min/1.5 mile or 8:40/mile), the charge hill/easy loop was tough – I could not get my heart rate down and I felt like my legs were moving through water. The last tempo was to hold my first sets pace – no such luck this morning. The hill killed me – dead, done, I should have quite then – I had to walk after the crest of the hill and I slogged along to the finish. That was the most suffering I had done in a while.

This morning we did hills at Nunn Street. Tom has an 800 m loop that incorporates a solid hill, some downhill, and some flats. I did a 1.2 mile warm up before we started. My group was to do 6 sets on a 4:10 pace. Our instructions were to start out and build pace to the base of the hill (approx 150-200 m), carry the hill – not charge the hill, then use the down hill to get back to pace and carry the flats home. Tonya and I did our six sets and I really felt pretty good about the workout. Lap 1 was fast, 4:02, Laps 2, 3, and 4 were right on pace, lap 5 was 4:16 and lap 6 was 4:22. We finished with a 1.2 mile cool down and some strides. The workout was hard and I suffered the last hill but I recovered on the down hill and made up some time on the flats. Over all a good day!