WazSUP?

Early morning golf, an awesome cruiser bike ride across the Sanibel causeway to Ft. Meyers (a hill!) then SUP tour through the mangroves. No running.  Happily.

Stand up paddle board

flat water, mangrove tunnels

fun fun core workout

Achtung! Alligatoren!

We drove a few miles out on the island to the Rabbit Road bike trail section to do our 1000s. Flat, straight, protected from the wind, but watch out for gators.

5x1000

on the Rabbit Trail bike path

Huffing and puffing

Cruise Day

Seven hours of easy, cruisey, island-wide biking. Lots of stops, a beer, a great day. 

Beach cruiser bike ride

Thirty-seven fun, slow miles

Island wandering

Sanibel 10

Sunday long run, 10@mp+45, done on Monday because yesterday's weather was nasty, and well, because.... I'm vacay!  Whatever works!  I love running a loop on vacation in a new place. We carefully mapped it, figured out where the water fountains were, then set out.  Running somewhere new is so liberating.  There aren't those associations of "this hill" or "this section" being where I usually feel awful or slow - just new territory to discover and see how it goes. Breezy and cool - a nice treat for  FL LR.

10 on the bike path

counting dogs, seeing new sights

Running somewhere new

Captiva Beach Wind

After a decent night's sleep, I feel much more ready to enjoy the week ahead.  Yesterday was soul sucking.  Today was crazy windy and not very nice out, but it was the first day of vacation, so I took the time to just breathe and relax and feel my way into the headspace.  Yesssss.  We biked north and walked on the beach at Captiva, with winds gusting up to 40mph.  The ocean was choppy and soupy as chowder; the wind was blowing like a bitch.  It was great. 

Blowing sand like salt

stinging, biting at my shins.

The wind is salty.

Long, long fly day

Today was a harder-than-it-should-have-been travel day.  I didn't weather it very well, not sure why, but most likely because I had to wake up at 3:15am and really didn't sleep well before that. Ugh.

Long, long travel day

that made me feel spent and old

and cranky and sad

Stupid Run

Why oh why do I always fuck up my tempo runs?  1/5/1, 5 at LT (8:18) but I started way too fast, plus I set up the run so that it was downhill for the the first half, so I just suckered myself into it.  Ugh.  I'm an idiot.  

Stupid tempo run.

Well, me, not the run, that is.

Need to pace better. 

Good Swim

A nice, solid-feeling, but not too hard swim this morning.  The pool was deliciously quiet and calm without the swim team. 

Smooth swimming, gliding

Back and forth, calm and steady

Quiet Thursday laps.

Steep Ladder

Whoa, that was a tough one.  Ladder intervals on the TM - 1200, 1000, 800, 600, 400, 7:13 down to 6:54.  Did it, though.  Plus I killed the killer squats afterwards - boom!

Hard treadmill ladder

Quick steps, breathing hard, go, go - 

pushing hard, yes - done!

Back in the pool

Finally - back in the pool! Felt strong and easy, but I only did 54 laps. I was worried about Mully being too cold in the car, the swim team invaded and made the water all splashy, so I just stopped at 3/4 mile.  The best part was the early drive into town, and the amazingly beautiful red-banded sunrise I got to see while I was walking Mully.

Red banded sunrise

Two wide, bright stripes of fire

slapped across the sky

Cold Wuss

Not too jazzed up about exercising at all today.  Took Mully on the snowshoe loop this morning - cold and breezy and raw.  Might whip up some motivation for an eazy spin later, might not.

Blue sky, sharp clear light

Cold wind whipping at my face

The couch is calling

The day after

So yesterday's run felt like no big deal, but apparently it was tougher on me than it felt at the time.  We did Body Shred/3 and a 45-minute yoga session this morning, and I was whupped.  Just blah.  Huh.

Body shred, yoga

Shouldn't have felt hard at all

but I was a blob!

Cold day, good LR

Long run today (Saturday) instead of Sunday, trying to beat out the forecast rain.  9@mp+45 was actual 9@ 8:56 (mp+16).  Ran mostly by effort, managed a negative split.  4 miles on Oblong, 5 miles on 43.  Cold and damp.

Post run hot tub soak

sipping on hot chocolate

feels pretty damn good

Virtual Sunny Bike Ride

About an hour of hardish spinning doing the Pensacola bike ride video.  First time back at it in about a year; I think I managed about 75-80% of it.  Legs started out a little dead, felt good by the end. 

Sunshiney bike ride

virtual reality

wishing I was there