Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Heat vs. Rain

It's either one or the other it seems. It's either extremely hot with a heat index over 100 degrees, or it's pouring down rain.

Tuesday was my somewhat easy day. Tuesday is yoga day. Ahhhh. Yoga keeps me stretched out and relaxed. And my family reminds me all the time that I need to go to yoga. My daughter told me I couldn't go to Six Flags with her and our youth group from church on Tuesday. The real reason is that she wanted to experience some independence now that she is in youth group, but she told me that it was best if I stayed home and went to yoga. Who am I to argue? When I got home, I hopped on the treadmill for an easy 3 mile run.

After a heat index of over 100 yesterday I was kind of dreading my workouts today. On the schedule was a 75 minute bike ride and the track workout with Team in Training. At 4:00 this morning our weather radio went off - we were under a severe thunderstorm watch. When I got up, the sky looked dark but it wasn't raining. I loaded my bike on the car anyway. When I got to work I decided to put it inside my car rather than leave it on the bike rack. I'm glad I did. The rain came down. And it kept coming. But by the afternoon, it had cleared off so I decided to stick with my plan and head to the veloway. I was a little concerned because someone said that when it rains a lot the veloway floods. But as I was taking my bike out of the car I saw a cyclist go by and I knew I could make it. So I set off for a 75 minute ride.

When I do these rides, I'm not really going for speed at the moment. I'm just going for time on the bike. There are parts of the veloway where I go 20+ mph and there are spots where I go 7-10 mph. The good thing about today is that the rain this morning dropped the temperatures into the low 80s. Wahoo! And I enjoyed the scenery today. Things I saw during my ride: a bunny rabbit, a squirrel (which I though I was going to hit going up the biggest hill of the veloway), a deer, a cardinal and a roadrunner. I also have to laugh everytime I pass the sign that says "Caution: Snake Crossing". Good thing I didn't see a snake. I ended up going 19.88 miles. Not fast, but like I said, I wasn't going for speed today.

After the bike ride, I headed up to the track practice. We pushed the time back from 6:30 to 7:00 to hopefully help a little bit with the heat, so I still had some time before it started. Since tonight's game plan was hills and since I did hills Monday and had just gotten done with a 19.88 mile bike ride, I decided no hills for me tonight. I did about a mile and a half for a warm up and did a few straights and curves. I ended up going 3.33 miles on the track. When the group got there, I had them do a few laps for warmup, do drills and then we headed for the hills. They all did really well. After the cool down, I joined them for the core workout.

We'll see what tomorrow brings. Will it be the heat or rain?

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