Running Chick

Spring has finally arrived here in Yooperland. It’s been teasing us for the last month or so with sun and warmish temps, but then Winter decided to give it one last go and we got dumped with heavy, wet snow last Monday. I had about 6” on my deck and a driveway berm that was just about up to the bumper on my truck (thanks, plow guy). We were back to our regularly scheduled Spring temps by mid-week and by Friday, all the snow was gone.

My trainer rides have been going pretty well, but I was not looking forward to doing 90+ minutes on Saturday to replace my 9-mile long run and was very happy to see high 50s in the forecast for Saturday. Road ride, wahoo! I decided to do my usual M-203 to Calumet/Josh’s house route because there’s not a lot of traffic on that road and it’s pretty scenic.

I think I mentioned in previous posts that I was pretty certain that my trainer rides were the reason for dropping one minute/mile on my runs so I was very interested to see if it also rubbed off on my road riding, too. My first clue was when I averaged 17.7 mph to McLain Park when I usually hover right around 13-15 mph. After the park, there’s a little climb.

Well, maybe not so little:

That dang hill goes on for around five miles of forever. There’s a slight dip around mile 15 which always fools me into thinking that the punishment is over and then – ha,ha just kidding! - back to more climbing. My speed and my legs usually take a pretty good beating on this hill, but I was able to keep things moving enough so my average speed only dropped to 14 mph when I finally reached the top. I rolled into Josh’s driveway in 1:25 and in previous rides, it’s been closer to 1:50. I think I can now officially give all the credit to my increased speed to riding my trainer 2 times/week since February. Extra bonus, my legs aren’t sore and neither are other unmentionable parts. Yays all around.  Josh and I puttered around his neighborhood so he could test out some new tires on his bike so my entire ride ended up being around 27 miles. I was going to go for 30, but the bagel I had for breakfast had long worn off and I was seriously hungry, so we ditched the rest of the ride and went to the Michigan House for lunch.

Two more days and then on Tuesday, I get to see how my legs feel about running.