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Jacksonville, FL, United States
In Life as well as in running the secret is Pace.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

The Stay at Home Tourists

this story actually took place almost 2 weeks ago...
Ribault's monument and my Lemond

For most endurance sports is an activity, for many it is a chore…  and they call it “Cardio”.  The purists, and the “racers” it is training…  Serious and regimented.

At times I’m sure that I am all of these…  but on the weekends..  we are first and foremost adventurers.  We don’t ride the same group ride…  or run the same routes each weekend…  but at the same time…  we are parents of teenagers…  have jobs houses dogs etc…

We still find time for adventure…  and often find it not too far from home.’

This past weekend was a good example.

We had an hour run and an hour ride on tap for Saturday…  So where to go?

We have been meaning to run the trails at the  Timucuan Preserve …  and since this is the only part of our fair city that has anything close to a hill we decided to do our ride in this area too.

With only two hours of training (marathon taper) we had a rare Saturday when we went about the business of getting up and getting ready in a leisurely way….  Including coffee, breakfast and a bit of a stab at the crossword puzzle in the paper.


But wait…  I’m getting a bit ahead of myself…  the story actually starts on Friday…  We met at lunch for a quick circuit.  I decided to do a couple of sets of deep squats…  yeah…  getting strong and flexible I thought… that’s what I get for thinking.


Delicioso

By the time we built our homemade Pizza for supper I had already started getting a bit sore and when I swung my feet of the side of the bed the next morning it was confirmed…  my legs were in a great deal of pain and no amount of movement or stretching was going to help anytime soon.

No matter fresh trails awaited at the  Timucuan Preserve.



So we loaded up the bike… put on our trail shoes and headed out.


The trails did not disappoint..   gnarly and rooty, plenty of ups and downs, and scenic views of the marshlands too… 

We ran for an hour or so…

Then grabbed our bikes and went for the hilliest bike ride I’ve ever done in Jacksonville, Florida (which is to say that we rode up 4 “hills”)

On our way back to the car I asked if we could go a bit further down the road “just to see where it goes”  a mile further on we happened upon a historic site -  the Ribault Monument (link for details)

pretty cool site, monument and view.


Judi Claims the lands across the marsh as her new kingdom

All in all a fun day…  exercise and education


3 comments:

Big Daddy Diesel said...

That is one of the best things about training, the chance to explore, its like bing a kid again, just wander over and check new things out, because we can

Lesser is More said...

Huh, who knew there were hills in Florida? How 'bout that! Glad to see taper madness isn't getting the best of you...yet

Wes said...

mixing it up and learning/experiencing new things is the spice of life in all endeavors. way to get it done, despite the DOMS.

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