Midnight Runs

Or: It's too damn hot to ride.

It's been over 2 weeks now since I last rode my bike. Heat indexes in excess of 110F will do that. It's been just miserably hot and muggy. Not riding makes me crabby and want to smoke (cigarettes, not cigars which I tend to puff on once or twice a week regardless.)

I've decided that to help counter this, I'd break out the running shoes a few nights a week at midnight. I'll pop in my headphones, toss my Garmin in my pocket (though it's not highly accurate in there), and pound the sidewalk. A couple simple rules: not on nights when I've been drinking (to avoid injury) or on nights when I plan to ride the next morning (to avoid soreness). Yes this means I have to be honest about whether I'm actually going to ride the next day, but I tend to be pretty good about that, and if I really planned on getting up and riding, I'd probably not be thinking about running at midnight anyway.

I have been planning on getting more serious about running anyway, as I promised a bunch of friends that I'd do the Bourbon Chase with them in 2012 (we couldn't get registered for the 2011 version or we'd do it then) and that means I need to be in good enough shape to run 15 miles split up in 3 legs over the course of a weekend. Oh, and the team of 12 has to maintain a 10 minute miles pace. I'd like to not be the slowest person, so I'm shooting for 8:45 as my goal pace. That's a bit better than the average pace of the average marathoner. So considering the shorter distance, I think it's probably easily obtainable with some effort and with over a year to get there, I hope to be able to achieve it.