Back in the saddle
Literally.
While I wouldn’t consider my last week spent in Los Angeles to be a “week off” exercise-wise, it certainly wasn’t a dedicated, focused effort either. I spent the week covering the E3 conference in LA and our hotel happened to be 1.25 miles away from the convention center; I’ll estimate that we walked at least five miles every day between hotel trips, meetings at other locations, and general floorwalking in the gigantic LA Convention Center.
At any rate, before the trip I got sick with a cold; I had it the entire trip, and I still have it. I was kind of out of sorts between the change of atmosphere and routine, the sickness, the timezone changes, and the crappy air in LA. I got back late Friday night and I’ve had trouble getting back to EST and reality.
I knew that my biking adventure would be an either/or proposition tonight; it was either going to be stellar, or it was going to be shit. I rolled the dice and left.
Luckily I had good music with me. It rained all evening here in Detroit, so the humidity was exceptionally high. I started sweating almost immediately in the thick and heavy air. Still, I am in awe of how fresh and clean everything smells here compared to Los Angeles. Michigan air has the warm and seductive scent of flowers, trees, and leaves. The rich scents of late spring are thick in the air.
I cranked my music and took off. Normally my biking goes like this: pedal pedal pedal driifffffftttt pedal pedal pedal drifffffttttt. Tonight it was constant pedaling with no drifting. I set a firm pace and stuck with it. I went 3.5 miles and kept up the pace. If you’ve been keeping up with me on BuddyRunner you’ll see what I mean–my pace this evening was the most even it’s ever been, and it was the best I’ve ever done.
When I got home, I was dripping, but extremely satisfied with how things went. I needed this to clear my head and get out of this funk.
It’s good to be home.
Ugh, working out in humid air. I hate it so. stinkin. much. I guess it's not as bad at night when the air is cooler, but it still sucks.
By the way, your buddyrunner for June 1st is hilarious. What exactly was going on at that point?
We walked a LOT in LA. Not just trips to and from the hotel, but the walk to LA theater was a good one, and all the distance covered on the show floor. Couple that with our meager food intake, we worked off a lot over there.
It's good you got back into biking strong. Keep that pace up, it'll really help you cruch before EPIC
Brian,
Welcome home.
we sure did miss ya!
How was the conference?