I almost ate a bird

Out the door about 4:15 this morning. I ran the anti-clockwise route shown here. As you can see, it's about 7.7 K, and today I did in the one hour called for by the IGP™, doing about run 15 walk 45 seconds or so. I walked about 5 minutes before, and the first part of the run was slow as it took me a while to warm up. Nice morning for a run, although I didn't see any wildlife except for one bunny in my front patio. Walked a few minutes afterward as well.

The run went well. I didn't feel fast, but I felt strong and picked up the pace a couple times when I noticed I was running comfortably and breathing was easy. The hill out of Fish Creek doesn't seem so steep as it once did, and it isn't as long.

I was thinking about doing the road to Nepal for my ride, but someone at work thought the paving was still happening. They're right. I pedaled out to where the long hill starts. There's new pavement going south, and there was a ton of paving trucks going back and forth. I decided I didn't need to get any closer. You can see the actual route I took this evening.



The wind was something else!! Holy Hannah! Gusting straight out of the west at least at 30 K. At one point I was riding with the wind at about 35, and could feel it at my back. Most of the pavement I was on south of 22X wasn't very good, except for 773 itself. I nearly took a spill on some gravel about the half way point as I was turning a corner. The wind caught me just at the wrong time. I enjoyed riding past some kind of horse event getting set up directly south of Spruce Meadows. No idea what it was, but there were some pretty girls doing stuff.

I was hoping to be out for 2 hours, and it turned out to be 1:50 for just a hair over 40 K. Average speed 22.4 K which isn't bad considering I spent about 3 hours pedaling into the teeth of the wind up the hill between Spruce Meadows and 37th. Most of that was on the drops and I can feel it in my guts now. Max speed 62 and nearly scared the crap out of me doing it. Average cadence 71.

The ride went pretty good, though I wasn't feeling quite as strong as I'd hoped for. I was having some pretty good twinges in my left calf off and on. Still, I did power up a couple of the hills, and had lots of gas left at the end of the ride to try to speed through the school zone.

I can hear Susi asking about the bird. Humongous crow. There were several of them on the road eating something that I hope was dead. I came swooping around a curve with the wind. They scattered, then one caught a breeze and it cut back in front of me. I think if I'd been reaching out I could have touched it. It looked a little startled and twitched it's wings so it went up and away. I was doing better than 50 Kph at the time and a face full of big black bird had NOT been on the agenda. The rest of the ride back was uneventful, except for it getting windier and colder.