Cycling it is

After Mondays Camelback fiasco, I reverted to the old gas guzzling Xterra to get to work yesterday. I felt a little defeated but went back to the drawing board and formulated a different plan. This morning I woke up at 5:30 am and headed off to the gym. I ran 1 hour on the treadmill and got in about 20 minutes in the pool. I took a shower, drove back home and grabbed the hybrid bike and rode to work. I figure that my main objective is to commute using my own power. The most sensible way to do this is to cycle to and from work, which will be 22 miles a day. I can do that in about 1 1/2 hours leaving me plenty of time to run and swim before or after work. Running to work and back would tilt my training much to heavily toward running and away from cycling and swimming. Perhaps in the triathlon offseason when I am training for ultras, I will revisit a more comfortable way of packing my necessities and run the commute. I would love to do that many running miles per week, but right now it doesn’t make sense.

The only down side today was arriving to work pretty sweaty. Luckily, being a sound engineer, I dress casual and I dried off rather quickly. The plan is to do the bike commute 4 days a week. I am very happy. Being in the fresh air beats being in a car any day. There is something about running and cycling outdoors that keeps a person grounded. We, as humans, are just built to be active and moving. There is something about the beauty of the outdoors and the smells that conjures up great memories of being a kid and reminding you of who you are. And I even had the opportunity to interact with some other people along the way, a crossing guard and a fellow cyclist. I think I am really going to like this

Paul