Party in a Pannier

Road Bike 40 miles
Run 10 miles


Headed out for a ride today planning to meet up with some friends a little later on in the evening for a barbecue on the beach. Loaded panniers onto my bike full of everything needed for a cool evening cookout and a cold ride home: food, warm clothes, sneakers, and a baseball glove. I had about three hours though before the get together so I took advantage of the warm afternoon sun and headed up into the mountains. When I got up to Eaglecrest (local ski hill) I decided to check out the condition of the cross country ski trails in case I wanted to ski once more this season. I was surprised to find the trails very firm and in decent shape still for skiing. And then it hit me: I had sneakers in the panniers, the trails were in perfect shape for running, and since the resort is closed for the season there's really no reason to continue to obey the cross country ski use only rule. It felt so nice to run on hard packed snow again. It was a bit slippery, but very firm and I was able to do 10 miles in just over 90 minutes. Ate some food. hopped on the bike and headed down to the beach. Never did see my friends until I had decided to head for home and they drove by in their car. It had gotten a bit late and I was getting cold so I continued on home, ate a big dinner, watched a movie, and am ready for bed.

Thought a lot today about how I'm going to train for a 24 hour mountain bike race, a 25 mile mountain running race, and a 50 mile trail running race that all occur within 6 weeks of each other. Didn't come up with any real plan so I'll probably just do like usual and train based on what I feel like doing each day. I'd really like to get more scientific in my training and see if it makes me faster, but I might just have to save that for next year.