Sore sure, But Otherwise A-OK

I woke up this morning feeling like while I slumbered the night away mafia goons were busy burying my legs in wet cement, ready to push me off a pier into choppy waved water where I would be swimming with the fishes for my cross training activity of the day. I quickly went down the list of intergalactic gangsters I may have recently wronged, but came up with zilch, giving me no real reason to believe the Hutts placed a bounty on my head and somewhere along the way my legs were encased in carbonite as a dry run to test the capabilities of the carbonite capturing equipment. The soreness I was feeling, was just the normal repercussions of muscles made to move for excessive distances. Phew...  

So in the afternoon, tired, yet more importantly, pain free, I had errands to run, and decided to meld cross training in with them, getting things done in one fell swoop of productivity! I peddled to the library (about a 2 mile ride), to return John Adams (which I thought was great!), then Schwinny Cooper and I decided to take the long way home together. Part of the motivation here was to scope out what lies beyond the parameter of my normal running paths. Sure, I'm aware of the area, and Google Maps is certainly aware of the area too, but I wanted a clearer idea of the terrain for the 10 miles coming up next Saturday (not to mention some of the more daunting miles from there on out). Most of the areas I rode through were hilly, and you might think that is not so much of a problem on a 12 speed road bike, and in a normal circumstance I'd agree, but, and I believe I've mentioned this before, my bike is a rolling calamity waiting to happen. My 12 speed is basically rendered a 3 speed, because every time I switch gears beyond that limited base, the chain pops off. So considering I'm not a cyclist, taking on hills with no more than a 3 gear range really was a bit of effort. 

This is probably common sense to everyone else, but one of the first things I realized today, as the cold tipped daggers of wind were whipping the Scottish blood beneath my face into a frozen fury fueled frenzy, if I'm going to continue cycling through the winter months, gloves & cycling pants will become creature comforts well worth investing in. The ride ended up being about 6.5 miles. My legs felt like they had put in a good day's work, though I probably could have gone a bit farther, I really didn't want to push it. I'll probably go for a brisk walk later in the evening, just to balance out the cross training a bit more. With that, week 4 ends...so it goes.