That was good timing

Saturday I dropped into Try It to top up on gels. Chatted with Richelle and big Mark, who's not as big as he used to be, was there with his adorable little daughter. Richelle had lots of encouragement and advice. (I didn't word that very well, and don't really have time to fix it. There is no relationship I know of between Richelle and Mark. She works there, and he had just dropped in for some stuff. I say this because I know some of my blog readers, and you know who you are, have rampant imaginations. For example, one of them, during her trip to Italy, went on and on and ON about Roman Erections. She used caps. Yes.)

The big part of the day was taming the jungle outside the house. I'm TOTALLY counting this as a workout. 1.5 hours of hard cutting, trimming, and raking. I use a reel type mower, and the grass and weeds are thick and tall. All that effort produced as much sweat as any run and probably had my heart rate into zone 3. And worst of all, I'm not really done. It's kind of uneven, so I'll have another go at it on Wed, in between consulting my lists and making neat piles of stuff. With any luck it won't have grown much.

Today was a bike run bike run day. This is the part I timed right. The morning sucked. It was cold and cloudy. By cold I mean about 9 C (48 F) with a light breeze. I wasn't really in the mood, so I had some coffee and hoped. Eventually I figured I had to go. There was no way I was going on the trainer for this. I don't think I want to be on a trainer again till, oh, say, January.

I didn't really feel like going out 22X, so I picked a loop through south Calgary, and whaddya know. I got lost in Everridge, or Bridal Wood, or some place just south of Fish Creek. There's been so much development I didn't recognize it, and I'm pretty sure there's a chunk of road not there anymore. I ended up going in circles a bit, but it turned out ok because I got back to the house exactly on the 75 minutes the plan called for. Short transition.

Ran a hair under 20 minutes, going around the block stronger than I normally do. It used to be that 20 minutes for this route would leave me gasping. Now, today, doing it in 18:23 was a brisk pace that had me working, but I could have gone on. Short transition.

Out onto the bike again, not wanting to do the same route again. Started looking at the sky and thinking a bit. During most of the first bike and run it got nice. There was even real sunshine for a while. Now it was clouding over rapidly, cooling down, and I could smell rain. I decided not to go too far from home, and take it easy on my knee. It was squeaking a bit. I called it done at the 30 minute mark. Short transition.

Another run, same route. Not trying to be fast, but trying to be strong and smooth. This was exactly a minute slower, and again, I could have gone on. Walked for a few minutes and stretched. About 20 minutes after coming in it started. Thunder, lightning, heavy rain, and a bit of hail.