Put That on a Leash

I'm training for a couple of long races this summer. The training program I'm using is designed for the athlete that has a real job and does not have many, many hours to devote to training every day. Mondays are the rest day and the main volume of the workouts is on Saturday and Sunday. The longest training weekend consists of a 100 mile bike ride immediately followed by a 6 to 7 mile run on Saturday. Then Sunday has a 1.5 hour bike ride followed by a 3:00 hour run. In the run I will likely get close to 20 miles unless my legs are completely beat because of the Saturday ride/run brick. It should not be that bad since the training program I'm using gradually increases the volume of the workouts so that I don't over-train or become injured.

Another nice thing about the training is that the weekday workouts are not too long. I can complete them during a slightly extended lunch hour. Thursday is an hour long ride starting from work. The route consists of city streets until we can reach the park, then a paved trail out to downtown and back for most of the ride. Only six of the 16 miles are on city streets.

It is always more enjoyable to train with a friend, that way you have someone to share your pain. On this particular Thursday the weather was very nice. One of my coworkers brought in his bicycle and we normally ride together on Thursdays, as long as he is not lame... Here is a map of the route we rode on one particular Thursday.

There were a lot of people on the trail especially when we reached downtown. In fact there were so many people we had to slow down some to avoid crashing into them. It seams that if there are more than two people in a group they must walk in a non-single file manner, blocking the entire path...

When we come up behind people, whoever is in the lead yells to the people walking, "On your right" or "On your left", depending on which path will have the least resistance and make the fewest people move for us. It is always a good idea to yell fairly early because the people in front of you always look back first before moving over. I probably do the same when I am on foot and a cyclist comes up behind me.

On the way back to work, in the park before we got back to the city streets we come across a very common occurrence. Three people walking on the paved path taking up the entire path, one man and two women. What made them unique was, not what they were wearing, jeans and t-shirts, or their hair cuts, shoulder length hair on the women and mid back length hair on the guy... What made them unique was what the man was carrying. I have heard of pets being carried rather than walked. I have seen young girls and even middle aged women and men carrying small dogs instead of walking them on a leash. I have even seen the not so common cat in a harness once or twice. (We have yet to try that with Fez, I'm sure it will go very well when and if we try it) This guy had a snake over his shoulder. It had a triangular shaped and could have been a breed of boa constrictor or python. It looked to be about 18 to 24 inches long and was light green in color and blended into his green t-shirt/blond hair combination.

I wish he would have had it on a leash... it would probably just slither out.

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