Double Dog.

This past Sunday, the day after my first long run in a long time (see previous post), I did my second run of the Annapolis Striders' Dog Days XC 8K. I ran this race last year with my former roommate Katie. Afterward, we spent several hours helping some friends move. All in all, an exhausting day.

This year, I continued the trend of doubling up on the exausting activities. In order to practice our bike-to-run transition, Marie and I went for a 45-minute bike ride before the race. Our bike ride was not very hard, but the combo of the previous day's run, the bike ride, and the race was brutal. I love running cross-country, but I did not enjoy a second of this race. The first half was total misery. By the halfway point, I had stopped caring about my time and I took a long walk break at a water stop. Fortunately, Marie and one of her friends caught up with me at that stop. Joining up with them gave me the motivation to run again and some distraction for the second half of the race. I wound up finishing in 52:42, a decent improvement over last year's 55:24. I'm pretty sure I could have done better had I not been so exhausted, but that's the way it goes.

Speaking of bikes, tonight I finally attached some toe clips to my pedals. When I started tri-training, I had intended to get clipless pedals, but I never came up with the money for the pedals nor the time to practice with them. Instead, I picked up a pair of $7 toe clips with straps at REI, and- with a lot of help from the internet- attached them to my own pedals. Once they were attached, I got up on the bike and promptly learned that getting into the clips is not easy. On the advice of a tri-training book, I practiced on my grass so that I would have a soft landing if I fell. It took a good hour before I could get into the clips fairly consistently. Once I sort of had the hang of it, I rode up the street to an empty parking lot... and learned that the tip about practicing on grass is really bad advice. Yes, I would have a soft landing if I fell off the bike. However, getting in and out of the clips on a bumpy surface is a million times harder than doing it on pavement. I would have saved at least 30 minutes by skipping straight to the parking lot. Another lesson learned. Sometimes I think tri training is as much a mental workout at a physical one!