Saturday, February 7, 2009


"Your journey began from a single point. You travel in a straight line; sometimes the slope may be steep and the distance seems far, but you you are at midpoint. The endpoint is in sight."

---Bob Miller


Maybe someday I'll be able to calculate the slope of this line.

But for now, I had a really nice Saturday morning run twice around Elkhorn and into the woods. It's an unseasonally warm spring day that started out cool in the morning when I ran, and then got up into the 50s! The lake was mostly frozen and there were about three flocks of birds in various parts of the lake that had patches of open water. I always think of winter as a dormant, silent time, but there was a lot more bird call than I thought. At one point, people stood watching an entire flock of birds fly noisily overhead. Then, I saw a blue jay in a bush. The run went well and I ran the whole 4.5 miles without walk breaks, keeping pace by listening to my breathing.

On Sunday, it was 61 degrees--a breath of spring in February!!!! I took my bike off the trainer and went for a 19.5 mile ride. There was a really strong blow-me-over 22 mph wind, especially at the beginning of the ride. To avoid the combination of a strong wind and big hills, I began to do the route out of order and backwards, first heading over into the Clemens Crossing and Hickory Ridge neighborhoods and expanding my route a bit. Then I headed down onto the hilly, scenic part of the route. Except for one long steep incline hill, I could swear the route is easier in this direction and that's why I see so many cyclists heading in the opposite way when I go down this route. I saw probably half a dozen cyclists and two dozen motorcyclists as well as people in cars, just getting out and enjoying the beautiful unseasonably warm afternoon. At the end of the ride, I felt like I could have gone further but I headed back. I was sore yesterday after the run and I'm anticipating a case of Monday morning DOMS, but I don't care.

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