On Saturday, August 2nd, a week after my "Double Skyline" Ride, I accomplished my goal of riding to the Bike Hut and back. The ride requires climbing 2500 feet to Skyline twice, and I had a lot of anxiety about being able to do it. I wasn't sure my fitness was there. The weekend before, I climbed it once, bailed on going over to Half Moon Bay, and turned around. At the bottom, I had climbed to Skyline again on the same side of the hill. This time, I did the whole, originally planned route with no problems. I had been worried about climbing Tunitas, a brutal but beautiful 6 mile climb back to Skyline. Once I was on Tunitas, I paced myself well and actually enjoyed myself. I felt exuberant at the end of the ride.
School began this week on August 17th. My goal now is to maintain the fitness I've built but I'm not putting my pressure on myself to go farther and farther. I would like to consistently work out several times a week and just maintain. I'm teaching virtually, and it's just as hard as my first year of teaching. I'm having to create new curriculum for each class every day...from scratch. I'm often working late until the night. I'm exhausted. Exercise is going to be critical for me to maintain balance and sanity. I ran and did weights on Monday after school. My run felt great. I actually was able to pick up the pace. I felt light and zippy on my feet. It's taken me a long time to get back to the point where I can just meditate and allow my mind to float away blissfully on my runs. I want desperately to maintain this because the first 4-6 weeks of starting to exercise again were miserable. Right now, the air quality is shit because of all the fires in the Bay Area. It smells like campfire, and there is ash on the car. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the wind blows in our favor at some point today so I can get a window of fresh air to go for a much-needed run. Here's to hoping.
1 comment:
Kudos on the discipline Rachel. August has been a tough month here in SoCal too, with crazy heat and poor air quality from fires. I did some wrenching and worked through a bout of diverticulitis, and got up an hour or more before sunrise so I was on the road to see the sun come up, all to beat the heat.
Longer goals can be helpful in riding over these kinds of bumps, work the averages instead of killing yourself on any given day. I did love watching the sun rise, but still ended up light mileage for Aug, but I have a few more days to make my month, even though I have already met my goals for this week, so I'm going to try to pull out a big ride tomorrow or Monday, or maybe, both.
I still like being heroic, even if that's just meeting my own, made-up goals. For me, that beats the hell out of the drudgery of roboticly grinding out miles on a bland, relentless schedule, so I ride the averages and enjoy the special moments adaptation brings - like watching the sun come up over the desert, sometimes twice in one morning if I'm quick. Possible when riding very close to an eastern range.
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