The Heat Is On

Three-sixty after work during the week always intimidates me. The traffic from people going home from work can be massive. Last night I had a two hour ride planned and the thought of doing more laps around Great Northern (~3 mile loop) was definitely not appealing. While I love cranking it out on the flat straight away of Great Northern, Zurich is NOT flat and I need to get out into the hills more. After my run yesterday the thought that I needed to ride later in the day seemed unreal, but after lunch, my legs felt refreshed and dreams of being on my bike infiltrated my thoughts. I was ready and this time I was going to take on 360. To make things a little better and maybe give some of the traffic time to die down I rode through town to the South entrance of 360 and Mopac. The ride there was definitely congested, but I picked a way that had bike lanes and took pleasure in passing all the cars waiting for lights. By the time I made it to 360 the traffic was MUCH lighter. Apparently around 7 PM everyone has already skedaddled. The road was mostly mine and actually I saw few other cyclists even. Maybe the lack of cyclists was from the heat, which has already been turned up here in Austin. I lost five pounds in sweat alone by the time I got home and I drank both my bottles. I guess even the 360 loop is a bit short for a two hour ride because I still had about 30 minutes left when I reached the GNL and so rode around twice anyway.

When I woke up this morning I knew my legs would be tired from the run-bike of yesterday, but I was looking forward to the run. It rained just before I left the house, but the air was still thick as I weaved my way down to Pease Park. I could feel the heaviness of my legs from the previous days, but tried to keep it steady and do a few pickups to start working in some speed.