Morning ride

Today was the first scheduled 1 hour outdoor ride as part of our training program (which officially started Monday!). It was a gorgeous 60 degree morning so I really had no excuse as to why I shouldn't get my ride in on the way to work.

Wednesday is the day I train the volleyball girls at our school so I have to be ready in the training room a little before 7. When biking for transportation I always leave a little wiggle room to allow for shoe changing and flat tire repair if necessary so in order to get in an hour I need to leave by 5:30. I'm very bad about packing my lunch and clothes ahead of plus I like to have a good breakfast with coffee so that means I have to get up at about 4:30 (yes, I'm that slow in the morning). No one said ironman training was easy.

Anyway, I woke up this morning very excited to go on a ride in such beautiful weather. I thought to myself, what a nice morning to go for a ride in rock creek park. I left the house and ventured out onto the road. There were barely any cars on the road and every light was green as I made my way across town. I got to rock creek with about 40 minutes of my ride left to go.

Ok so where was my brain this morning when I decided Rock Creek would be a good place to ride at 6am in the early spring (we still technically have a few days before its really spring)? Was the incredibly dark 20 minute ride to the park not enough of a hint for me?! As soon as I turned into the park, the light from the street disappeared and the only thing separating me from total darkness was my little headlight and the occasional light from cars passing by. Idiot.
Don't worry, I didn't stay in the park all that long--I avoided a u-turn because I had no way of checking out what was behind me. I took a turn on Tilden road and climbed a massive hill to get to Connecticut ave.
After my rock creek park fail, I surrendered to just staying on Connecticut ave for the rest of my time. Snore. Up the street for 15 minutes and back again until I rode up to van ness and then eventually to the school.

I know that this ride was a success--I got in 60 full minutes of outdoor biking--but I really need to tweak things for the long term. First of all, my book bag was like 100 lbs this morning. Did I think I was going on a week long vacation? Way too much crap to be hauling around on my back for an hour. Second, I need to be a bit more mindful of the sunrise time. I'm sure that all the drivers in rock creek park are telling their friends about this idiot that rode their bike in pitch black this morning. Lastly, I need to think out routes for the morning rides. Connecticut ave is no fun so until may rolls around (or whenever it gets light out at 6am), I will need to look for interesting alternative hour long rides.

As promised, here are our new running totals (starting from scratch)

Swim 2500m (planned 2500m this evening)
Bike 36ish miles
Run 6 miles