French Fries and Good Intentions

Yesterday was another unseasonably warm day. After taking care of some work in the morning and taking the girls to the dog park, my husband and I hit the polls to cancel each other out. We didn't have much of a wait—we were out of there in less than 40 minutes. We decided to go out to lunch, and that was where I made my first mistake.

My plan was to hit the trail in the afternoon, so I got all my gear together and headed out to Burchfield Park. My intention was to ride my cross bike on the ski trail (also open to bikes, but easy and not technical in the least). I thought I would do some intervals. Even though the easiest place to do intervals is on the trainer, I wasn't about to ride the trainer on a 70 degree day in early November.

I started a warm up loop and almost immediately felt awful. My high fat lunch sat in my stomach, my back and neck were sore and my butt hurt. My legs felt like lead. Intervals were obviously not in my immediate future.

I don't know if it's because I don't remember the last time I rode my bike three days in a row or because I just needed more recovery time from the race, but I wanted to turn around and go back to the car. I didn't, though, because the day was beautiful and it took me about 20 minutes to get there from my house. So, I stuck it out and did slow loops of the ski trail for about 45 minutes before packing it in.

I ended up riding down some of the trail connectors I don't usually take because they're all grass. It's not really fun to ride on grass, but it's definitely good practice for cross. By the end of the ride, I was breaking a light sweat and felt a good sense of accomplishment. I also remembered what a difference a trail makes. Even riding relatively slowly, I got a much better workout in 45 minutes on the trail than I had in an hour the day before on the bike path.