Pedals

For the first time in the two years that I have been joinning the Philly Runners on Tuesday nights, I biked to Art Museum. It seems odd to me that I haven't done it in the past. It's just a 5 mile ride down a bike path. I only have to cross 2 streets to get there.

I haven't ridden my bike in a long while, maybe last June, so I pulled it out to make sure everything was in working order. It's a well worn mountain bike that I bought about 6-7 years ago. I've replaced rims, tires, brake pads, and the pedals but everything else is 7 years old and it is starting to show. A couple years back half of my exercise was done on the bike. I spent hours riding up and down the rocky steep hills of the Wissahickon Park. I hope to get back into this mode but for the next couple weeks at least I have to concentrate on running.

Before hopping on to go to the group run I wanted to change out the pedals. The bike has "clip-in" style pedals that require special shoes which lock into place . To ride these pedals in my running shoes would make things uncomfortable. It's hard to keep your foot on a 1" square rolling piece of metal. The first pedal came right off, the second pedal wouldn't budge. I spent 20 minutes trying to wrench it off of the crank. My temper rose every time the allen wrench would slip. Mechanical things really can frustrate me when I can't get it to do what I want. It's a part of my personality that I don't really like but it can be hard to keep my cool, I have gotten better.

I planned on leaving by 6:00 to make the run. It was now 6:05 and I still didn't have the damn pedal off. The intelligent thing to do at this point would be to put away the bike, get in my car and drive down as normal. But I was angry and I didn't care if I had to duct tape the f'ing pedals to my sneakers I was riding this bike to the group run. So at 6:10 I hopped on the bike, did my best to keep my feet on the tiny pedals and raced to the group run. I had to really hustle to get there before it started and I was only going to make if the run started a little late.

Luckily it did start late and I was there just in time. There was a huge group on a sunny 65 degree evening. I joined Ian, Stevus, and Ben for the first mile or so. First mile in 6:30, quicker than I wanted and I debated dropping off the pack. The next 1/4 split was at 6:10 pace and I quickly dropped off of the pack. Mile 2 still went by in 6:36 and now I really decided to slow down. Dropped down to about 7:40 pace and kept this going the remainder of the way running with English Mike.

I rode the bike home after the run at much more leisurely pace. My legs are not at all used to biking and although I wasn't breathing heavy on the ride down my legs were burning like I was riding all out. It's going to take a little time to get used to the bike again.