October 06, 2015

Riding ALL the streets

Yesterday, I decided to go for a bike ride in the morning. I wasn't really in the mood to try to ride far or with a ton of effort, so I wanted to choose a route that would be nice and leisurely. I don't know what gave me this idea, but I decided to see if I could ride all four neighborhoods on the peninsula--riding the length of every single road of those four neighborhoods.

The neighborhoods here aren't perfect rectangular grids, so I knew it would be kind of difficult to remember which roads I already rode and in what order I should ride them. When I ride just the perimeter of all four neighborhoods, the total is exactly five miles. I was curious to see what the mileage would be if I rode every single road!

It ended up being pretty fun. Even though it wasn't very challenging physically, because I was riding slowly, it was a mental challenge to try and figure the whole route out while I was riding. When I uploaded the ride, the route from my Garmin looked kind of cool!


From that, I could see that I missed about three roads. It was so confusing when I was riding, because I had to ride several of the roads more than once. I was very surprised by the distance... I ended up riding over 13 miles!


My favorite number is 11, so I love that I finished in 1:11 and my speed was 11.0.

Speaking of numbers, Thomas ran his fourth full marathon on Sunday, and before his race, I made a prediction of his finish time. I guessed 3:39:33. And you know what time he finished in? Yep--3:39:33! He didn't know my prediction, but I posted it to my other "Sole Mates" on Facebook that morning. I was watching the live tracker as he ran, and when I saw how close his finish was actually going to be to my prediction, I was pretty impressed--then to see that my prediction was spot-on, I got way too excited ;) (Of course, it was a lucky guesstimate).

The weather has warmed up a bit, thankfully. I wasn't ready for winter! On Saturday, the kids had baseball games, and it was ridiculously cold for October. It was 44 degrees with 17 mph winds, and to top it off, it started RAINING. The kids were miserable, and I felt really bad for them. I was wearing two layers of Cold Gear, and huddled up with two blankets, and I was still freezing.


They were supposed to play a double header, but all the kids were so wet and cold by the end of the first game that they decided to call off the second game. None of the parents complained about that ;)

Yesterday and today, it was back to "normal" October weather, which is really nice. I went for a three mile run this morning, and felt good.


I noticed today that it feels really nice to get back into a rhythm when I run. Inhale for three steps, exhale for two; let my mind wander, and my body just run at whatever pace it naturally falls into. I haven't felt that in a long time, because when I was doing the run/walk method, I wasn't running long enough to get into that rhythm. I never really realized that I even had a rhythm while running, but I definitely noticed it yesterday, and it felt familiar (in a good way).

I love the look on Joey's face, like he's bored to death


The kids had their third cross country meet today. This one was a one-mile race. It's kind of crazy that we drove 40 minutes, got there an hour early (Renee and I got there early to get our team together and their numbers pinned on, warm up, and all that), and then the race was over within 15 minutes. The kids on my team have improved quite a bit this season! We're already halfway done, which is hard to believe.

Noah is very proud of himself because he has improved so much from last year. Today, he ran his one mile race in 8:55! He's come a long way since his 13:30 pace just over a year ago. Eli is doing his best, and his times are similar to what Noah's were last year. Eli has been doing really well at practices, too--he wants to get in as much running as he can, and he sets some pretty lofty goals. Today, his goal was to run the entire race without stopping; so, I told him to do it at a nice, easy pace rather than a "race pace". And he did it! He ran the entire thing.

At the end of this month, we're driving to my sister's house, where she'll be running a half-marathon (she was signed up for the full, but her leg has really been bothering her, so she's going to do the half instead). There is a 5K event too, so Jerry and I are going to sign up for that with the kids. It's a Halloween race in the evening, and they have a bonfire afterward, so it should be fun. Eli has been asking to do a race with me, and now that I can run, I'm excited to do it with him!

7 comments:

  1. I have always wanted to try and write a word with my garmin route but the roads by me are all over the place so I loved what you did :)

    Joey is seriously the cutest ans I just want to kiss him all over his face!

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  2. A Halloween run sounds like so much fun! That'll be a blast!

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  3. Wow, an evening marathon, that is crazy. The 5K sounds like fun.
    LOVE the bike route!

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  4. Haha that's a fun bike ride :)
    Your weight loss is REALLY showing in your face now. Good job :)

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  5. Kudos to you for being able to find your way home after that ride!!! I feel like I would have been SO LOST!

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  6. Which race is the Halloween one with a bonfire? My friend and I are looking for a race to do around that time.

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  7. The map of your ride is awesome!!

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