the Way of the Turtle

Eight Strenuous Weekends, Part -
wait a minute! this was the weekend off!
Sunday, October 15, 2005

Other than, of course, covering karate classes at Rochester, riding the bike course for next week's duathlon, checking out the trails for the running segments of the same, and getting in a 9 mile run today...

But I DID get to sleep in this morning... that was pleasant after being up by 5:30 AM for the last three or four Sundays!

Checking out the bike course confirmed that I definitely want my ATB rather than the road bike... there's nothing all that extreme about the bike route, but part is along the edge of a field, and the freshly graded rail trail is still pretty deep in stone dust. Had a brief adventure when I took the wrong trail at one point, wondered how they were going to do an out-and-back along a rugged singletrack through the woods, and came to the end at a stream. (At least, I'm HOPING that's the wrong trail... if you cross the stream, hike through some swamp, and cross another stream you DO end up on a trail that goes to the field loop. But an out-and-back
on singletrack is dangerously insane... I doubt that's the plan.)

The run through Fishers Park should be pretty standard, trails aren't anything awful... though at only 2 miles, I'll be finishing each running loop right around when I'm getting warmed up.

Ann thought I was nuts (she thinks it's cold), but today was a good day for the 9 mile run along the Genessee Valley Greenway (another old rail bed converted to trail.) The trees kept the wind down, and I even had some sunshine for the last part of the run. And it was nice and cool! Great running weather!

Next week is the off-road duathlon, then a half marathon and a 20K the following two weekends. I toyed with the idea of entering the Stone Cat Ale Trail Marathon/50 Mile Race out near Boston the weekend after that, but (1) it's bloody expensive, and (2) it starts at 6 AM (YIKES!) and (3) I could probably finish a marathon at this point, but the last 10 miles or so would be really ugly, and I'd pay for it physically for a good long time. Maybe next year...

JMH