Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Back On The Bikes

Well I didn't think I was busy enough training for a half marathon and now working shifts at Fermi Lab AND playing volleyball and commuting 4 hours a day (a lot of this is on trains though). What to add, what to add? Oh I've got it, let's go back to riding our bikes to the metra train downtown! This saves us both time and money, both of which we have little of. So last night we got home around 8:30pm (we left around 5:30am) and after searching for a bit for our bike lock keys, we went downstairs to see if our bikes were anywhere near riding condition. Let's just say that leaving bikes sitting in the corner of a basement for about 8 months doesn't do well for the said bikes. But as soon as we dusted the bikes off and put air into the tires they seemed good to go. We took them around the block for a test spin and as soon as I got the chain into the correct slot for the gear so it wasn't slipping, the bike was riding very well. After getting that all taken care of we went back upstairs showered had some left over spaghetti for dinner and went to bed.

4:15 am : DO DE DO DE DA LA LA alarm is going off. Hit snooze
4:24 am : DO DE DO DE DA LA LA shit it's really time to get up, what the fuck was I thinking wanting to get up this early to ride my stupid bike to the stupid train to stupid work. stupid.

4:55 am : We are out the door with 5 minutes to spare!

Since it was so freakin' early out there wasn't anyone out on the streets so we didn't have to do the mad fight with the traffic. You know the usual : car honks, you yell, they yell....really usually a lovely way to start the morning.

When we got closer to downtown I was enthralled by the skyline. I love the way the city looks all lit up at night (it's still dark at 5:15 am)

***random note*** I am sitting here at my desk and a bird keeps flying into the glass of my window.....what the...?****

Back to bikes-So we get downtown and lock our bikes up with many-a-lock and head into the train station. We are 10 minutes early for our train so we get a 10 ride ticket and grab our seats.

All in all a lovely morning.....but I am hoping that I am not overdoing it. We'll be home around 6:30pm tonight and will have a 4.5 mile run and then I am guessing I will drop into bed. The one good thing about keeping a schedule like this is I tend to sleep really really hard so no more waking up at 3:30am like my ass is on fire convinced I have over slept. Also we did this for awhile last summer and while we were biking I didn't have much running leg pain so maybe it's good for building up extra (or other?) muscles and kinda keep my legs in check.

I also want to send out a note of congratulations to a fellow Fermi Lab runner for an oustanding preformance at the Shamrock Shuffle; Kirby came in with a time of 32:30!!! That's really really (really) fast. Nicely done.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Leah,
I think this would be a good time to also take up juggling again. You know, something to do in your down time and you never know when it might come in handy. It's popular in Key West!
Sorry for my delayed comment but Congratulations on running the Shuffle and breaking your record. I'm going to find the route for the Indy race and start to make a 'Follow Leah and Jason' plan. Can't wait!
Sue

LeahC said...

Hi Sue-

yes how about juggling WHILE running. Actually someone did that during the chicago marathon last year...was going to go the whole way without dropping the balls or something. I don't know if he did it though.

oh the indy mini is going to be crazy...i gotta get my game face on!

LeahC said...

john-

thanks for stopping by!