When I'm not trying to drown myself- if I couldn't laugh at myself, life would be without a lot of its of mirth but as it is plays like an episode of Seinfeld- my workouts right now are, I hate to say this, but they are awesome.
I hoard my time off because I consider it the primary benefit of my job, that and half-days on Friday in the summer. Both Margit and I are professionals with lots of work, and taking long vacations just never seems to happen, so starting in the last week of May I combine a deluge of days off and half days- I had 9 to work with, which give me four days off, six half days, and as long as I avoid Fridays, another four half-days. That's a ton of days off.
I basically use it to do two things- get in shape- which I never am going into that period- and keep the lawn mowed. It gives me a chance to train 3-4 hours a day up to four times in a week.
Yes, this is probably a little unhinged. But it beats getting up at five-thirty to swim and working out every day at lunch and some of the other things I do.
And yet, this Friday, I did something I'm not sure I've ever done on a half-day Friday.
I ran.
I look at all this time as bike time and swimming time. Swimming is usually jammed into my lunches. And the chance to bike for 3 hours does not fall out of the sky like rain.
Rain.
It was 58 and raining Friday when I got home. I got home late, despite my best intentions to get home early- I'd spent half a day at work Thursday, even though I had the whole day off. Go figure...
I was planning on doing the Lake Placid Virtual Reality ride, but by the time I got home, I didn't have time. I didn't want to go outside and ride, and the though of spinning for 90 minutes to two hours- all I had time for, just didn't seem to be a 'big workout', which is always the Friday goal.
So I put on my running shoes, my kit and a technical shirt over than, and went out and ran for about 92 minutes. I negative split my run by about a minute.
I'd done the same 90+ minute run on a sunny mid-sixties Sunday, after an easy 42 mile group ride (140 minutes) and a 20 minute run the day before. On Friday, I did it after a hard 60 mile ride that was under 3 hours and a strong 20+ minute run the day before.
I hit the turnaround for the run 1 second ahead of Sunday. I finished a full minute under the previous run. Then it was time to change my clothes, check my email, buy some fish and some vegetables for dinner, and hit the day care.
Maybe a 90 minute run isn't equivalent to a 60 mile bike ride. Maybe I could have squeezed another 15-20 minutes in.
Who cares ? I went out in the rain and got a great run in and opened up my weekend for more variety in my workouts- I did a two hour time trial on the bike today with a short run afterwards and it felt great, and that was after spending 90 minutes mowing the lawn.
The rain and the chill is something I usually view as the enemy. It's supposed to be sunny and warm all the time now (queue laughter). And yet, it gave me a chance to mix up the routine and relax.
That in turn gave us a change to spend a couple of hours on the Guilford Green today at a Children's Fair, where Ian had a blast. It's great when everything- family, workouts, work-life- all falls into place. Even just one weekend...
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