Day 4, Week 1: My bike lives in my car. It's complicated.

The thing about training for a duathlon is that you get to like bike riding.  Or I did, anyway.  I usually did my rides in the morning, right after the sun came up, and the smell of the summer mornings was hypnotizing.  Until a car barreling down the country roads at top speed almost hits me and snaps me out of it, anyway.

But today I did my bike ride in the evening, which is just as nice because this time of year the weather is pretty awesome at about 3 PM and the cars almost hitting me aren't going as fast.  It's too bad that my bike has to live in the back of my car right now, though.

That's because my house is so small and lacking in a garage that the only place I can store this is in the basement. And to get it into the basement around a tight corner and through a 26-inch door and down the narrow steep 1930's steps every single time I ride it would be a complete pain in the keister.  I usually keep it in a covered trailer the hubbs has parked in the yard, but he had the nerve to actually use it to move things with so he kicked my bike out.  So, the back of the car it is until it gets way too cold to ride.

So how was my ride this evening?  Around 17.5 miles of windy.  When I'm on the bike, the wind is my nemesis.  So I always ride right into the wind when I start, and plan my route so that crazy wind is at my back when I am bringing it on home.  That way I can get all my mental swearing done in the first half of the ride and do nothing but feel good on the back half.   As you can see, the "endure the suck first" strategy that was employed made me have a pretty slow first 5 miles.

For just getting out and riding without obsessively looking at my Garmin for once, I'd say that's pretty good.  And I did feel good after the ride, even if I eventually felt bad about shoving my poor bike back into the trunk of my car like a dead body.  But I took a selfie with it first to make it feel better.

So what's up for tomorrow?  A nice 17 miler 45 minutes slower than my target marathon pace.  Can't depend on the dog to literally pull me through it like I do with tempos...it's either going to be awesome or it's going to be the kind of run where it's all I can do not to call the hubbs to come get me.  We'll see how it goes...