runnin' nekid.

Here is my recap of my weekend workouts. First of all, allow me to explain the title of this post. I left to go on my long run Saturday morning planning to run 8 miles in 80 minutes. When I turned my trusty Garmin on, it beeped at my and said that it had a low battery. Of course, I ignored the warning and left for my run. After less than a half mile into the run, my Garmin was turned off and I was out there electronically naked.

At first, I am ashamed to say, I had a bit of panic run through me. How will I know my pace? How will I know how fast my heart is beating at each particular mile? How will I know the exact time and distance of my run? But then I realized that it didn't matter. I train by time for a reason, and I should just keep running and pay attention to what my body tells me. Although Garmin data is great, overreliance on such hard numbers can't be a good thing with endurance training. At some point you have to take your body into account.

I continued running my trusty 4.5 mile loop. Felt good and tried to take it slow (LSD run). I ran back by the house after finishing the loop to take some water and a gel. I was in the process of dropping off my dead Garmin as well, and decided to leave my ipod behind too. When I set out on my second loop, I was truly electronically naked and it was nice. It sounds stupid, but I actually felt lighter and less restricted. I took my time, enjoyed the warm weather we are finally getting, and finished my second 4.5 mile loop for a total of approximatly 9 miles and felt pretty good afterwards.

Sunday, I had tentative plans to go ride bikes with my buddy Jonny, but life and weather was making it a little difficult. I had some work to do Sunday afternoon, and wanted to play with Bryce since he and Jessi had been out of town for a couple days. These lame excuses, coupled with potential thundershowers and Jon's reluctance to get his hair wet, effectively cancelled my Oxford ride this weekend. Instead, I did a three hour ride on my bike trainer Sunday night. There is absolutely nothing exciting to write about that so I won't even bore you with any of those details.

Side note -- Bryce has learned to run! And he will tell you "Bice run" just so you don't miss it. We actually went to the track Sunday afternoon and he ran his first quarter mile. I'm not sure if that's legal, so please don't tell DHS, but I swear he did it. One full time around the track. This, together with about 180 trips down the slide, made for a pretty full afternoon and a serious need for a juice, bath and early bedtime.

***Anyway, officially -- Saturday, I ran about 9 miles in about 90 minutes. Sunday, I rode my bike trainer for three hours.

I also got an e-mail last night that swimming is cancelled for another week. I'm starting to get worried about this. Swimming fitness is really particular and it isn't easy to get stronger in the water without the opportunity to get in the water. I'm open to suggestions.

Later.