just plugging along

"Your body will argue that there is no justifiable reason to continue. Your only recourse is to call on your spirit, which fortunately functions independently of logic."

- Tim Noakes

To kick start July, I did my longest ride ever.  80 miles!  I'd had enough of all the hills and decided to do this one on my own, starting in Shirlington and riding the W&OD trail all the way out to Purcellville and back.  I also got my first Ironman training injury, around mile 60 of this ride:

This HURT!  It was a long 20 miles back to the car!

The next morning, it poured rain on Paula and me as we did our long run and crossed 3 states -- started in Virginia, ran through Georgetown in DC, and then up the Capital Crescent trail and into Maryland:

The picture does not do justice to how wet we were!

One week later, I did my new longest ride ever, my first century!  100 miles!  And I ended up with my second training injury:

No idea how I hurt myself - it didn't hurt - I had to be told I was bleeding.

Sometimes we did our long runs in the evening after work -- a makeup run after skipping it the previous weekend -- oops.  That might have been a lesson learned based upon how sore I was on Friday at the office.  People stared at me using my stick roller on my calves and ice pack on my ankle all day!  I did this run with Paula, but only took a selfie as I finished a few minutes ahead of her.  I was pleased with this performance, being able to go under 15 min/mi while doing 2 min run + 1 min walk intervals:

Holy blisters!  Luckily none of them hurt, just make my feet look disgusting.

We also ran in very HOT weather!  This was a mid-week run and I opted to skip the team's Power Run that was on the schedule (1 mile run + 10 min boot camp circuit, repeat 3 times) for a shaded trail run with Jessie, Eileen and Henry.  It was still ridiculously hot though:

This was the one time I forgot my Garmin... luckily I had my phone, but it's WEIRD running without my Garmin!

I drove down to Cambridge with my team to ride the Ironman Maryland course.  Of course it was another hot day!  It was supposed to be a 110 mile ride, 2 laps of 45 miles each plus 1 additional 20 mile loop.  I only made it the 2 loops of 45 miles.  One of my teammates, Adele, talked to me and told me I needed to listen to my body, that I seemed dehydrated and done.  I'd wanted to do triple digits though, so I climbed back on and set out for an out-and-back.  About a mile and a half down the road, I realized that my will to be off that bike was greater than my will to do triple digits.  So, 93 miles it was.  I don't regret it:

Love how they label the one hill of the course :-)

And that wraps up July.  Plugging along, plugging along.... I've actually biked over 1100 miles so far this year, by far the most bike mileage I've ever done (In 2014, I was just under 700 miles for the year).

It's hard to believe there's less than 2 months to go.  I'm not sure if that excites me or terrifies me...  one more month of hard work and then taper!