I did 18.7 mph average – not bad considing the hills (425 ft vertical). I’d like to be able to keep this pace going for a whole hour.

The Doctor gave me the go-ahead to ride again today, though I have to wear the split when riding. I rode for about an hour out in Wilowdale. I have to go pretty slow, due to the split, but mostly due to the loss of strength (or confidence?) in my left hand. I also felt pretty rusty as far as general bike handling goes. That said, it was great to be riding again on such a perfect day.

For the next month I’m planing on doing a mix of trail running, trail and road riding. I think the running has been good, and I need to keep my cardio-vascular fitness up since going slow on the MTB isn’t nearly as solid a work-out.

I ran 4.1 mi in 1:01 – all Willowdale single track trails. My goal was to run as slow as possible for an hour, so I’m pretty happy with that. I’m hoping I can do this 3 times a week or so, and do something easier on the off-days.

Here’s the track on Garmin Connect – pretty nice, Check it out on their site via “View Details”, with heart rate and everything.

I picked up some running sneakers this weekend, and went for a run today. I wasn’t sure I could run for more than a few minutes at a time. As it turned out, I ran for 41 minutes, and did 3.1 miles – around a 12 minute pace. I ran the same trails that I was biking on – Willowdale State Forest, single track mountain bike trails. I found the trail marked for the EFTA mountain bike race that I had intended to do. I haven’t run any distance at all since college. I felt pretty awkward. It’s going to be a while before I remember how to do it.

Tomorrow I go in for surgery on the thumb. I suspect won’t be up for much after that. But I hope to run again Wednesday or Thursday, but we’ll see how it goes. I’m not sure even if I’ll be able to type with my left hand, so my posts may be a bit shorter.

They’re great, but I’m down one. I crashed on a log crossing, landed hard on my left hand and bent my thumb back farther than a 50 year-old thumb was meant to go. My plan of doing the 20 mi MTB race at Willowdale this Sunday seems doubtful. I’m feeling pretty good about my abilites, but I kind of need to hold on to the handlebars with both hands.

I did this Tuesday, took yesterday off, and rode on the road today. I did my 13.5 mi loop in 45 min – that’s 18 mph average. I felt really good (except for the thumb). I see the hand Doctor tomorrow – I suspect there’s no major damage, but then, I can’t lift a beer with my left hand any more, so it is something to be taken seriously.

I did the NSNEMBA’s Monday night “relaxed pace” ride. We had 16 riders – some regulars, and some new folks. I’m not sure how relaxed the pace was. I was riding as fast as I could the whole time. We did stop periodically to let folks catch up. I guess that’s the relaxed part. According to my gear, we did 9.7 mi in 1:47 – a loop catching most of the single-track around the perimeter of Willowdale. Adding in yesterday’s 2:05, 11 mi ride, that’s 4 hours at a good pace for the week, and its only Monday.

Today, I tried the snowshoes. I wore the Garmin 305 mainly to check my heart rate. I wanted to see if snowshoeing was a reasonable cardio workout. Turns out that it is, as the data below shows (click it for full resolution). When I walked the same route a few days earlier with no snow, my heart rate averaged 102 bpm. It does seem that I could stand to do a few sprints here and there to liven things up.