Ride one, run two

Last week was my first week of fairly consistent training in a while.

This week I almost lapsed back by bailing on my Mt Coot-tha bike session yesterday. (It was raining. Descending in the rain isn't particularly safe.)

I saved it today by following through on one of my dumbest ideas yet.

Because I chickened out on Mt Coot-tha yesterday I decided that I should do some kind of short ride before my planned 20k run this morning.  I looked at all kinds of options before deciding on the obvious.

"What if I ride one lap of Coot-tha and run two?"

The ride was good, one lap up the "back" of Mt Coot-tha. While the back side is steeper and shorter, I feel like the rest of the loop is easier from that direction.

I'd already decided that in running two laps I'd do one up the back and one up the front, but I wasn't sure in which order. It seemed to make sense to get the steep bit out of the way first... though then I was up for a harder lap on the second one. But by then I'd be warmed up. Right?

Though I've been more consistent with my running than with anything else, I'm going to have to admit that I wasn't ready for this session, no matter which way I went. I stopped a handful of times up the long stretches at both the front and the back, but I got on a roll across the top and ran fairly comfortably, even if slowly.

I've got a 90k hilly ride with friends planned for tomorrow and I don't know how that's going to go on my tired legs. But when you're preparing for two endurance events a few months apart, you don't really have the luxury of saving yourself for tomorrow.

And the up side will be, at the end of tomorrow I'll have two weeks of consistent training behind me.

A post about Mt Coot-tha isn't complete without a reference to the view.