Thunder, Lightning, Torrential Rain, and That Doesn’t Include the Tropical Storm

The weather has been rather unsettled in our area recently. We had several afternoons, evenings, and nights of storms; so many in fact, that they’ve all run together at this point. Thursday evening, totally unrelated to Tuesday’s tropical storm, parts of our county got pummeled with 4 inches of rain in an hour (over 5 inches in less than 3 hours). We had heavy downpours, but nothing like that… As a result of the frequent storms, some of my workouts were planned around the crazy weather.

 

Overview of the Week

Before discussing each day’s workouts, here’s an overview of my workouts from this past week. Scroll down for daily details…

 

Sunday

Betsy and I decided to make up Friday’s rained out Panera breakfast ride on Sunday morning. It was a delightful 71° when we started our 18-mile ride and we were pretty pumped that we maintained an average speed of 14.4 MPH (our 2-mile ride to and from the trail always slows us down quite a bit).

 

Monday

With a chance of storms totally unrelated to Tropical Storm Isaias, I headed out super early on Monday for my walk/run. I complete my 4 miles at a 13:00 average pace. Later in the day I lifted weights and competed my physical therapy exercises.

 

Tuesday

While Tropical Storm Isaias was in the process of dumping over 2 inches of rain on us, I opted to stay inside on my treadmill for my 4-mile 4:00 walk/2:00 run intervals. Had I been running entirely, I would have gone outside, but I was afraid I would get too cold during my walk segments. Depending on whether you look at my Garmin or treadmill data (I like my Garmin’s, LOL), I finished my workout at either a 12:06 or 12:54 average pace. Keeping it honest and comparing my time to my other recent workouts, my treadmill is probably more accurate so it was most likely a 12:54 pace.

 

The creek behind our house barely overflowed its banks, despite all of the rain from the tropical storm…

 

Wednesday

When I learned that my early morning client wanted to meet later on Wednesday, I jumped at the chance to join Dawn Patrol for a bike ride. It was 69° when Bill and I left the house at 5:10 AM in complete darkness. For the first few miles hardly anyone else was on the trail, and with our headlamps lighting up the way, our biggest concern was a deer darting into our path. We joined our group 16 miles into our 36-mile ride.

 

On the way home after our final turnaround, we ran into a minor traffic jam and had to wait while three large pieces of equipment crossed the trail. We finished our ride with an average speed of 15 MPH.

 

Later in the day, I complete an hour of strength training and 30 minutes of PT homework.

 

Thursday

After 5 consecutive days of either biking or doing walk/run intervals, I took Thursday completely off. Other than my doing my McKenzie press-ups, I didn’t do any exercises.

 

Friday

I only had one client on Friday and her appointment was at 6:30 AM. Excited to have the entire day ahead of me, I lifted weights and did my PT homework so that by 9 AM, I was free for the day. Originally, I’d planned to write up my coffee date linkup that morning, but with our recent rains, I knew the soil would be easy to work and the lure of gardening pulled me outside.

After a quick breakfast, I headed outside to dig up and separate the large clusters of liriope that had multiplied so much that they practically filled the bed above the stone patio and to the left of the Hokie flag. Digging up those bad boys took over an hour and a half of hard labor and lots of sweating, but netted me nine new plants to transplant. Next I dug out four dead or dying azaleas to create space for the liriope around our Alberta spruce. Planting the liriope was the easy part and I am thrilled with the results.

 

Saturday

Saturday morning found us in Purcellville, VA next to the W&OD Trail’s terminus for our weekly group ride. Another group had been invited to join us so we had 14 riders altogether. Ends up, one of the new riders and I had worked together at The Health Club of Reston in the late 80’s/early 90’s so it was great to catch up with her!

 

We rode a 37-mile loop in western Loudoun County which introduced me to 2 class 4 hills (I didn’t even realize hills were rated until after the ride). Of course, what goes up, must come down and we we were flying on the back sides. Strava says I was going 40.3 MPH at one point, but my Garmin only shows 39.4 as my fastest speed. I saw 39.8 on my Garmin and tried to get it over 40, but I was gaining on the rider in front of me and braked to be safe. Strava pulls its information from my Garmin so I’m not sure why the difference in the speeds.

 

After our ride, most of us went to The Pub for an outdoor brunch adding another couple of miles to our daily total. Pancakes have never tasted so good!

 

Here’s What You Might Have Missed

In case you skipped checking in on my blog this past week, here’s what you missed…

 

Questions:
  • • Were you in Hurricane or Tropical Storm Isaias’ path? If so, did you suffer any ill affects? ~ We had lots of rain, but not much wind and never lost power.
  • • What’s your favorite post-workout food?
  • • Did you run in a virtual race this weekend?

 

And that’s my rundown… Have a great week!

 

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I’m linking up with Deborah at Confessions of a Mother Runner and Kim from Running on the Fly for their Weekly Run Down. Be sure to check out not only the hosts’ posts, but those of the other great bloggers joining in on the fun!