Saddle-Breaking a Funk.

I've been in a fun lately. Not a good kind of fun either. The kind that saps the energy stores and just makes me want to curl up in a ball in bed. The only thing that is keeping me going is just how beautiful it is outside, and how could I not want to enjoy that, right?

My project lately has not been a lot of fun at all. Some projects fill me with energy and I work hard and train hard and exhaust myself into the most restful kinds of sleep. And some projects leave me feeling physically and mentally drained before my eyes are even fully opened each morning. My current project is the later and its becoming hard to motivate around the rest of life. But I am trying.

Last week was particularly hard and by the time Friday rolled around, I needed a physical and mental break from the world. Truth is this holiday weekend has not been the level of athletic I had hoped for. I can't decide if its good or bad. I think I needed a break, but at the same time, I always feel better when I am training like crazy and I know that has slipped a lot on this project. It impacted my first marathon and I need to really prevent it from impacting the second. I need my groove, so I decided to go for a bike ride.

I haven't ridden much post injury. My beautiful yellow bike hung in my bedroom begging me to ride her, but you could tell it had been a while when she, quite literally, had no air left in her tires at all. I had gone from 120psi to under 10. Yikes. Bree had told me when I was recovering that I needed to avoid any "mashing" on the bike for fear it would impact my knees really badly. While I had done my cycling training class, however, overall, my biking had been on a trainer and with careful regard to my knees. And the truth is, it kind of sucks the joy out of it. Cycling indoors on a trainer is about as much fun as running on a treadmill (and we all know my prowess on treadmills). So today, I took the old girl out for a spin.

I put on my Spongebob jersey. Man, I love me some of that Sponge. Truth is, people love the Spongebob jersey-- I get comments on it every time I go out. It's just fun to wear. So it was step number 1 in making me find a groove again. I hit the road and heard my cleats lock in and just felt good and strong. I remember a few times going out on my bike and feeling my quads pulling against my knee and just knowing things weren't like they were supposed to be (and usually just ignoring it and keeping going). This time, I felt good and strong. I hit the park and next thing you know, my speed was popping up into the low 20s and I felt the whistle of the wind in my ear and just settled back and enjoyed myself. God, it felt good.

The park was pretty crazy, all in all-- I expected as much for Memorial Day. I kept my speed very in control-- for one I didn't want to go all out because I promised Marisa we could go for a run together tonight, but for two because I wasn't up for the drama of the close-call that can happen on days like today. So I kept it to about 12 miles and about 15mph average speed. I mostly just wanted my groove again. I found a hint of it. And now I don't want to take my cleats off. :)

This afternoon/evening Marisa and I will do a run together and then tomorrow I head back to Hartford for a very short week-- I come back on Wednesday night so I can spend Thursday in celebration of Marisa's birthday. I missed it last year and was determined not to miss it this year, at any cost.

So there... more later, post run.