Training for the Wasatch Back, which is just three weeks away, I decided to do a two-a-day this Saturday. To start with I road my bike over to Sugar House Park and met up with my friends from another Wasatch Back team from work for a mid-morning run. I wore my Vibram Five Fingers in order to give my calves and shins a good work out. In total, the group knocked out 4 laps around the inter loop of the park (5.5 miles) while I did an extra lap for 6.9 miles. Then I biked back home and spent the afternoon studying for the CFA.
I kept holding off on my evening run because due to another storm that had moved into the Valley. I was so hoping the pouring rain would let up at least for a little bit. No luck! At 8:30 pm, I just gave up hope and threw on my windbreaker and headed out. It was bad. A nice a cool east-to-west wind hit me in the face as I started my journey back to Sugar House Park. I was so cold and wet that for the first 3-4 miles I kept trying to make up a good excuse to turn back early and call it a day. In addition, my legs were just heavy from the nearly seven-mile run earlier in the day in my Five Finger. However, I just continued to slosh along (and I mean slosh, lots of standing water) until I neared the halfway point when it was better to make the extra effort to complete the workout instead of living with the disappointment of turning back just a little bit early. Also, I figured that could not get any more soaked than I already was. At the Park, I just sloshed around the inner loop twice. I was planning another lap, but the river that flows through the Park jumped its banks as the rain continued to pleat down. First, it jumped on the East side of the Park (north of the basketball courts) in a surreal scene of white caps from the river splashing on to road while two orange-vested, construction-hat-wearing city workers sped away in their truck after trying to increase the ability of the river to flow through underneath the road. Debris was flowing across the street, so I took the long way around (i.e., up and around Highland High School). On my second lap around the Park--it was very dark at this time--I realized that the Park’s pond had jumped not only its banks, but also the sandbag wall that was trying to contain it. I was all of a sudden sloshing through ankle-high water that was rushing back to the river on the west side of the Park. This is when I realized it was better to get out of the Park’s basin, so I dashed uphill for higher grounds on the Park’s trail where I completed the second loop before trudging home through overflowing gutters, along sidewalks with sizable puddles, and around the crazy Saturday night traffic that was even more reckless than normal due to the adverse weather. I was in my glory. In total, I was able to get in 13.5 miles at a slow pace, but I really worked for it.
Besides my 8.5-mile bike ride, I was able to complete 300 sit-ups for my non-running workout.
Five-Minute Plank Challenge: 2:00
Trying-To-Go-Out-Of-My-Way-To-Eat-Healthy Challenge: a stack of whole-wheat pancakes
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