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Inline Skating 44 Miles on the Silver Comet Trail (Slowly). How About Your Recent Workouts?

No matter how far or not, how fast or not, I love to hear people's stories of skating. Ten words or a hundred paragraphs, tell us what you've been skating, cycling, lifting, or anything. Or just tell me what's up lately. So here's my freewriting exercise. I'll try to type it out once and not do editing other than spelling and such...
Well, eebee and I went out for a long skate today, thinking we would do about 30 or 32 miles. She's been training to skate and I've been training to type, read, watch p2p tv of sporting events, so you can imagine who had the lower heart rate, ha!
You guys know that we believe in having a device that shows average heart rate, and that our experience has shown that if we end up with an average over the average we usually have ended events with, there's pain to pay. Well eebee was cruising along with great form and low heart rate (I think skating on a flat track is something she enjoys as far as practicing form and it showed out there today; maybe I need to check out the only track I know of that might allow me to skate).
Well there was no way I was keeping below my usual average, especially not my typical early season one, without really embarrassingly slowing us. I was actually feeling good and tempted to think I could beat the numbers. Sucker! But I was feeling good (and stupid) enough to banter along with her and agree we'd do two hours out and turn around. That ended up being 22 miles, and included some long mildly downhill stretches.
We made it almost to Rambo, turning around with that intersection in sight where eebee had sandskated and took a fall that hurt more and lasted longer that we thought it would. I had a similar fall at slow speed that hurt tons and did plenty of damage, so it is definitely easy to get hurt going slowly. Maybe it's easier, even.
Once we turned around I knew I was going to be in survival mode quite a lot on the way back. I hate when that happens!
On the way out, between 16 and 17, we saw a guy in cycling jersey, cycling shorts and cleats, who wandered in front of our path and made figure eights walking around a rock staring at the grass. We asked if he needed help and he said, "No. It's too late to do anything about it." We rolled on but decided we'd inquire again later if we saw him, and send him some help if we saw someone on the trail who could help.
After we passed he Paulding County Chamber of Commerce (20 or so?) we saw a trail ranger with a small vehicle and we told him about the guy who was "talking to a rock" (eebee's description). We told him we thought the guy might have hit his head but we didn't know. Eebee remembered that he wasn't wearing a helmet and we both remembered we did not see a bike. Strange days indeed. Most peculiar Momma. This was more strange since it was so near where the woman had been attacked and killed a few years ago. The ranger said he'd check it out.
So on the way back while my quads were cramping and I was really in survival mode, I did entertain myself somewhat on the possibilities of the staring at grass walking in cleats man. When we passed the rock around which he had been circling it was a bit strange. Some squirrel made a noise in the woods and we were both a bit spooked, ha!
Not long later we saw the headlights of the ranger's little four-wheeler and we stopped to ask him what was up. He said the guy's bike had broken down or maybe even broke period, but he had gone back there to look for his sunglasses. We figured Oakleys or Rudy Projects or something like that to be worth it. We never saw his bike. But the ranger said he had given the staring at grass guy a ride back to his car, so that was the desired outcome from our perspective and we hoped it helped the guy who had obviously had a bummer day. He was so bummed he just walked straight across the path in front of us unflenchingly.
I tried to survive by breaking down the route back into chunks of 4 miles or so, and pretended that at 4 miles we were finished, because most but not all of the last 4 miles are downhill. The other challenge of the day was that I was down to metal on my skate brake, so at the intersections my right foot was rolling on the grass and left was on the pavement, which mostly worked great, but not as well as a skate brake.
We got through mile 4 and glided down in pain, trying to decide whether being on two legs in a tuck was more or less painful that skating on one leg at a time. The answer changed along the way. We got along to mile 2 or so then we saw the one person we had expected to see out there at some point, Clarence, who had done the much of Carolina Century and Athens to Atlanta with us.
Well I did my best to have a personality but it was hard even though I really like Clarence and love to talk with him about skating. He turned around and slow skated with us, and by now I think eebee's muscles were tired too, so we were a motley crew, or a mott the hoople, maybe.
We got back to the car and I was feeling my legs would explode. Arrgh! I knew there'd be a wave of cramps that would hit after I stopped moving, because I'd been cramping for 20 miles or so. So I think my conversation was lacking at this point quite a lot. But I felt good to have made it no matter how slowly (our 11 mph turned into 10.3 or so).
Clarence took off to skate back home and we were done. On the way home at first my legs felt great and I said something to the effect of my legs felt all better. That wasn't true of course, as ten minutes later I could feel it again. But all in all, it was a good day and a successful skate. I hated to hold up eebee, as we are usually more closely matched over the long haul, but she seemed to have fun anyway.
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Comments
Supermodelquin Legs
It probably wasn't the smartest mileage to jump into with both feet this early in the season. But the Silver Comet Trail is such a sight for sore eyes, it was great to be out there for four whole hours. Overtraining-wise, we probably should have just basked in the sun for one of those hours. However, the point was to be out in the sun to breathe fresh spring air and soak up the sights: families strolling, cyclists racing, helmetless skaters playing roulette with their brains...
A funny-painful moment came about mile 42 when Clarence had joined us. Up a barely discernible incline Roadskater and I told Clarence we had to back off since we were going 'uphill'. Clarence and his fresh legs laughed and said 'This isn't uphill!!', to which Roadskater replied he could use some of those Old Navy legs...like the extra ones in the bin on that hilarious Supermodelquin Old Navy commercial (hint to advertisers: if you make me laugh I'll be more likely to buy your stuff).
Anyone else skating or cycling?
Update from the North
Last week, when the weather looked promising and warmed up, I put my ski gear away for the season, thinking to hit the road soon. I have not been on skates since last October. Needless to say that I am a little antsy showing some skating withdrawal symptoms. But Mother Nature makes me suffer a little longer, the snow is flying again and temperatures dropped from plus 21 to minus 10 overnight. I often think I should move south…ha
I try to keep in shape by visiting the gym, go to spin and boxing classes and sweat through boot camps.
M
You'd Miss the Snow But Love the Warmth Perhaps
small distances only please!
Skating Faster
Your Training Seems Great
Haven't skated in a dog's
Haven't skated in a dog's age, and I've only done one short bike ride in March, so not much to report there.
However I did have this show up at my door yesterday:
http://www.elderly.com/vintage/items/60U-2268.htm
For some reason I've been obsessed with having a banjo (more or less having to do with Sufjan Stevens, I seem to recall.) And it seemed that the best way to put that to rest was to just go ahead and get one.
Then it can sit and collect dust like everything else and I'll go back to my ordinary life. :-)
I wondered when the 5-string fever would win
Not yet on the banjo kit
I looked at banjo kits but decided to go for one that was ready to play already. Enough projects going already right now, but maybe next time I will. I did go ahead and order a used copy of the Foxfire 3 book, which has about 80 pages in it on building mountain-style banjos.
(Remember those books? I have couple of them sitting on a dusty shelf, but not #3. Nowadays it's really hard to remember that it's "Foxfire" and not "Firefox." And I used this site's amazon.com search box, not that it'll add up to much.)
Re mando projects: Yes, both actually. I made a new bridge for my mandolin last summer because the original broke. And I made a new bone nut for it over the winter because it was murder trying to tune it with the original sticky plastic nut, and with 8 strings mandolins need tuning a lot. I've also been working on a mandolin kit for a new and hopefully much better-sounding instrument since last summer. That's an "hour here, couple of hours there" kind of thing though. So far I'm probably not even halfway there on it.
Here's some googlebait on the banjo for the page:
Poop, Stages of Death-Grief, Skating 26 miles at Country Park
On Saturday after sleeping off the work week I called a few local skaters and bikers at the last minute and Jack came out and so did Tim. We met at Greensboro Country Park for laps and it was a fine day, if a bit overpopulated.
I started before either arrived and I'm not sure how many laps each did but it was a generous amount, as they didn't have to worry over going fast when I was around.
We talked mostly about Formula 1 auto racing, as we had been following that this week due to the Grand Prix in China. We had seen the qualifying and were pondering whether to stay up for the race at 3 a.m. edt (which we did, and thank you, Ukranian tv for showing it without commercials until the end of the race; at various points I was watching Chinese, French, British, USAmerican and Ukranian streams).
It was a good skate for me in reasonable time, and I was glad I had set a goal because the last two laps were tough enough that I would have quit without the 26.2 goal in mind.
Note to dog owners everywere: I love that there's a bark park and how that has gotten people out to walk, but please, if your pup poops, could you at least get it off of the asphalt (the pile that is)? Of course, so many of you do dog owners are great about it (and thanks for being a great dog owner), this probably annoys you greatly as well.
I know one thing, if a skater pooped in the road like that and didn't clean up afterward, they'd have us banned in no time, ha!
Note 2 to dog owners everywhere: Those long leashes are handy but not actually allowed at Country Park. They're admittedly really neat as long as you are paying total attention to your pupster(s), as so many of you do (and thanks for being a great dog owner). But when you're talking, flirting, phoning, denial-anger-bargaining-depressing-accepting, plotting or most ings other than focusing, the leash can pretty quickly become a danger for your pupster, or less importantly I know, for another person.
Having mentioned the inging above, especially denying and the other stages of grief, my mind runs to the dog I never had I would perhaps have named DABDA. My observations are that the sequence should be denial, bargaining (as bargaining seems just part of denial in this case...bargaining without any money or value to offer), then anger, &c.
Notable also is that with the 48 Hours murder mystery and Dateline spouses gone wrong mode of relationship management, the original theory on accepting death (which is often also applied to any grief or shock like oh you don't love me after all?), some people don't bother with anything after anger, or at least they hope to avoid the rest. Whether they face depression over it or acceptance over it (it being the change of state, not the deed they did to try to fix that state or respond to it), we'll never really know methinks. Now I'm thinking of the Saturday Night Live send-up of the white haired "Oh" dude on Dateline methinks 'tis.
Here's a bit on the five stages and it says the order doesn't matter. Still I like the flipped order and as I think on it DBAAD stages of death is kind of funny ("the bad" sounding like a rapper of death, and a mighty good name for a dogster too).
The second link is for an article that takes on the stages and the author. One comment points out that Elisabeth K-R eventually ended up with her own sort of denial of death...
http://www.slate.com/id/2107069/
The stages of death and grief may not hold any more philosophical water than Maslow's hierarchy, but they're good enough for a lot of thinkstarting and overfoodtalking, so thanks Abraham and Elisabeth for your five easy pieces of this or that.
The park was very nice on this day of 26.2 miles, or 16 laps, as you wish. I met a couple of 9-year-old fellows, one with a skateboard and a sad face, with whom I agreed I wished there were a place for him to skate his board there (with a helmet on). I said it didn't seem fair to me but I bet it was because of some accident there where a kid lost his board on a hill and it hurt someone's ankle down the hill...or the fear of that. His pal wanted to wear my skates but I thought they'd not fit so well. He instead stood on my feet with his feet and tried to get me rolling. We didn't fall but didn't roll either. So we sat and talked awhile as his pal illegally skated his board a bit further down the road. It was a nice end to a warm and sunny afternoon.
Bill Hader's Dateline NBC skit
six stages
denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, cleaning up doggie poop
Silly Title: bDAbBDbAdp
Roadskater: "Having mentioned the inging above, especially denying and the other stages of grief, my mind runs to the dog I never had I would perhaps have named DABDA. My observations are that the sequence should be denial, bargaining (as bargaining seems just part of denial in this case...bargaining without any money or value to offer), then anger, &c."
In the demise of a relationship, I agree that bargaining is definitely understated in this sequence. In my humble opinion, it should be bargaining-denial-anger-bargaining-bargaining-depression-bargaining-acceptance - and then of course - doggie poop.
USARS/USOC Banked Track Clinic
Track it to the Bank
The CO. clinic sounds really great. The race strategy must have been very interesting. Congrats on a fine showing and look forward to hearing how this clinic helps your '09 exploits.
Gimme More on the Banked Track Clinic!
Banked Track Clinic
Duoderm replacement
Band-Aid Natural Healing or Johnson & Johnson or Other?
Jonathan's Blister Pads
Glacier Gel
Glacier Gels at REI
Gels
I've been getting in about
In Particular?
Location, location, location