This week I ran w/ my long-neglected 4-legged training partner, did a reverse-tri, and dumped my bike.






Here's me and Biscuit the Wonder Dog, our 5yo rat terrier, back at his fighting weight. He and I ran to a new PR at the time (27:30) and an AG award in the NetJets 5k. He's packed on a few pounds in the last couple of years and can't run distances in the heat like he used to.









This is the Main Street Bridge in Westerville. It connects the northern terminus of the Alum Creek
bike trail (on the left of the creek in
this pic) to Alum Creek Park (on the
right). It's slated to be torn down and rebuilt, starting in July. And it's a good thing, because there's a huge pothole in the middle of the sidewalk which is easy to avoid on foot but tough to navigate on a bike. The pic on the left shows the Curb of Death, which is about a foot high and close to traffic. Yes, I tipped over the curb on my bike Friday while trying to navigate around the traffic-side of the hole. Landed on my back with the bike on top of me right next to bumper-to-bumper (and thankfully slow-moving) traffic. Even gently tapped my helmet on the pavement. A runner and two cars stopped. I was more mad than hurt, even though I have a scabby knee and I'm still discovering bruises on my thighs. The take-home lesson for the kiddies? Wear your helmets!

Saturday morning was hot but not oppressively humid. IronAnn and I ran, biked, swam in an unofficial Reverse IronMan. In case you didn't already know, it's a lot harder to swim in open water (even calm Alum Creek) than in a pool. I did my half-mile with a combo of strokes - my breast-stroke and side-stroke splits were about equal to my free-style ones. And since the time cut-off for the 2.2-mile section of the IronMan is 2.5 hours, I'd have to get a lot faster in my open-water swimming before I could consider that "challenge."

Summary for the week:

Monday - ran 2 loops of the Blendon Woods hilly gravel trail, 3.9 miles @ 10:44
Tuesday - ran 1 loop of the Sharon Woods multiuse trail, 3.8 miles @ 10:02 (90 degrees)
Wednesday - MIT Book Club ("South of Broad" by Pat Conroy), a belly full of homemade Indian food nearly wiped me out
Thursday - brief Biscuit run in the neighborhood, 2.65 miles @ 11:08
Friday - biked on the Alum Creek trail, 15.35 miles @ 16 mph
Saturday - ran on the Olentangy trail w/ MIT, 6.85 miles @ 10:10; biked on the Olentangy trail, 16.33 miles @ 13.5 mph; swam at Alum Creek Beach, 0.5 miles (800 yards) in 30:30
Sunday - pseudo-crosstraining (helping Mom downsize and move to smaller house)