The tights the temps the tunes

Whoops. Sorry folks, I've been slacking. A few things kind of went to hell and then HALLOWEEN and I bounced around in balloons as a bunch of grapes at some seriously over-crowded parties and now I hurt really bad. Good night = bad morning. Brunch? Please? I do not have enough food in the house to sustain this hangover.

Anyway. That was not the point of this. The point of this was the cold. Because I ride for kicks. I just really really enjoy it. I don't ride to go fast. I've tried, the other morning in the fog and then when I wanted to catch a light and it is hard to sprint on a single-speed. Like, pretty quick there is zip resistance and then it's just a matter of making your legs go round and round real fast. But I don't ride to go fast. And now I'm rambling.

See, when I want to go fast and go hard and get a workout in, I run. I'm a running. My racing is one foot two foot one foot two foot. None of this two-wheeled lycra nonsense. Gimme a good pair of sneaks and I'm off. I'm not a sprinter, not by any means. I'm a distance runner. Because distance running, you don't have to be good. You just have to not stop. Not so hard.

My first marathon I ran this past March in Washington, DC. It was badass. The race's slogan was "I ran through history" because that's really how it went. We ran Constitution Ave and the Mall twice, we kept running at the Capitol and allll over the place.

I'm runnin'. I'm runnin' I'm runnin' I'm runnin''

One of the best parts was the temperature. It was some 35° to 40° the whole time and I was flying. And I got this amazing compression tights that are the greatest thing ever. Every time I wear them I go faster than I thought I could. I don't know the physics behind it but apparently the compression does a lot and really helps push you further and faster. Add the cooler temperature and I ran that race like a boss. In my terms at least. Four hours, nineteen minutes and eleven seconds after I started, I pushed through that finish line and LOVED IT. Greatest accomplishment of my life.

I credit some of that to me being in shape, to me having trained well and gone hard. But I don't think I trained that well. I trained on my own. I only had about four months to do so. I did what I could, but my half pace was still only 2:09, and that doesn't read into a sub 4:20 full. So I credit the rest of it to the temperature (and the tights. and the tunes. they were rockin'. Blackandyellowblackandyellow)

Everyone knows you run faster in the cold weather. Do you bike faster in the cold? I don't think I do. I kind of feel like I start to shut down. Maybe it's just going to be a matter of practice. We'll see!