Saturday in the Park

Yesterday, awaking with a mysteriously sore foot, I skipped running, instead heading out on the MTB for a morning blast around Borderland. The early am daylight, marginal for road riding, is not a problem in the woods, away from traffic. The morning also have the benefit of rising temps, so although it might suck when leaving the house with the air in the teens, after a few minutes racing through the woods you forget all about it. By the time you work up a sweat, the final stages of sunrise give birth to the warmth of a new day. This is much more encouraging than riding at sunset when you are comfortable at the start, but sink into a deeper and deeper freeze as the miles roll on.

The park was deserted Friday morning. Usually I see a few joggers or dog walkers, or at least a deer. This day, it was me and few squirrels, that's it. The fireroad was all frozen mud, just a few scattered ice patches, nothing dangerous. More on that later... I warmed up on the way over through the twisting berms of the town forest, then started on a few speedy reconnaissance loops around the park. Scoping out the scene, once I confirmed the emptiness of my dirt autobahn, I reversed direction and made a full-on TT effort in zone 5B, all the way around and back out to the entrance. This is only a few kilometers, but it was still a very solid 12 minute effort. I cooled down on the way back home through the forest, finishing up with just over an hour on the bike, got showered, into the car, and into cubeville right on time, heh, heh. Not sure why, but I always feel like I stole something when I get in a good ride before work.

Today my foot was still sore. Not real bad, but tender on the outside/top where the metatarsals run down to my two smallest toes. This was weird, because I ran on Wednesday am, and this didn't get sore until the middle of the night on Thursday when I woke up off the couch. Fräulein Kerry was on her way to New Mexico for vacation/altitude training, and I had to have her at Green for a 1:30 pm flight. She knew that if we attempted a bike ride then it would end up being a tense, last minute dash to the airport, so wisely she decided a run was in order. This worried me, not only because of my foot, but also because I am not nearly as fast as the USATF New England Indoor 5000m Champion.

Out the door we went, and for the first two miles the pace was fine. The soreness in my foot was not bad, and it seemed to disappear as we ran along. Running over the frozen tractor ruts in the back of the sheep pasture may have been what brought this one, but today it seemed therapeutic. I was suffering today though, and the slight increase in pace on the way back hurt me. This week had probably already provided more than enough intensity. I struggled to stay close on the way back, and finished up in 33 minutes, which is about a minute and a half less than I normally take to do this loop on my own. I'm not sure of the distance, but 7K would be a fair estimate.

We easily made the airport and off she went. Light snow fell on the drive down, but it seemed ok when I was coming back. Phoning JG on the way, I convinced him we could head out for a road ride without freezing to death if we layered up. He was still working, but he agreed to try to be ready by 3. With a little extra time, I cleaned and lubed the chain on the cross bike, got all my clothes ready, and did some good stretching. Jeff called and said he was on his way out of work, expressing some doubt about the wisdom of going on the road in this cold. Looking outside, the snow was now falling pretty fast, and sticking too. Quickly I called him back and said OK, we could take the mountain bikes out. This was not my first choice, because I get enough of Borderland during the week, and an easy road spin made more sense. Still, even I am not dumb enough to go out and slide around the road dodging sand trucks and morons who can't drive in the dry, let alone a snowstorm.

We did the typical loop that I do all the time, but since Jeff is a single-track magician, we also did all the normally avoided gnarly rockpile boneyard trails. Of course, with the nice new coating of snow, this made things extra interesting. At least we weren't riding hard. It was nice, very technical, talking pace, and only a few portages where common sense overrode the temptation to clean a slippery obstacle. Late February is not the time for a roadie to be bashing his knees on giant rocks.

The ride was good, and the snows picked up throughout. The temps dropped down into the low 20's as darkness approached, but it was comfortable. We headed out around the fireroad where I had done my screaming interval yesterday, this time it was all white, everything coated. This included the tiny trace patches of ice lurking underneath. So when we got to the little climb on the access road, the least technical part of the entire ride, a stretch where a road bike could go, I am on the bar extensions climbing out of the saddle and lose the front wheel on a patch of ice and crash straight to the ground. Just what I needed. Hip, knee, head -- not serious, but hard enough to get my attention. Just another cut for my knee, some stiffness for tonight and tommorow, and I'm sure a nice black and blue for next week. Oh well, at least we got in almost two hours.

Tonight is supposed to bring more snow, so tommorow is looking like a trainer day. Running will probably go on hold until Wednesday. Hopefully this will be our last shot of winter, and all will get sweeter and sweeter in the next few weeks.