Ice Ice Baby

90 Degrees! Woohoo! Apparently the sunshine followed me home from Las Vegas. The weather was wonderful most of last week. I got in another bike ride to work. Man, this might become a weekly thing! One can hope.

It was around 60 degrees when I biked halfway into work last Wednesday. I wore my sleeveless bike jersey and arm warmers and honestly didn’t need the arm warmers.

The temperature was perfect. I parked the car a little further away from the Springwater Trail this time around. Each week I’ll park further away and eventually will bike from home (I hope).

The mileage in the morning was a little more, so that’s cool. My knees were a bit sore and achy for most of the morning. I’m not sure what that was about…was it the run I did on Tuesday? Was I just tight and sore? Did I push it too hard on the bike? (I had to remind myself to slow down several times.) Or was it just a “bad knee day”? Not sure. I iced my knees a few times at work and tried to take it easy.

The day got hotter and hotter and it was 90 degrees when it was time to go home. I had 2 water bottles with me and took it easy. But honestly, it’s a short ride back to the car in the afternoon so it’s not too bad. I went slow–the heat made it impossible to go very fast, so that was good!

Even though it was 90 degrees it wasn’t uncomfortable. Thank you Vegas for conditioning me to hot weather! It wasn’t such a shocker. I got back to the car in no time at all.

I was happy that I had no knee issues on the ride home or afterwards. My IT Bands were slightly tighter than normal (and they are usually tight) so there was that. I used the foam roller and stretched before bed. I should have stretched more than I did and when I first got home. I REALLY need to be better about that!

I was famished! Increased cardio does that for me. For dinner I made rice and green beans and curry shrimp. I love this dinner. It’s so filling and it makes me feel healthy and satisfied. Dinner was quick and easy, too.

My knees were tight and sore the next few days, which didn’t make me happy. In fact it make me very grumpy and sad that I had a flare up after so many months of doing well. I’m not sure what happened. Maybe it was biking several weeks in a row after not biking for months. Maybe it’s my clip-in shoes (I’ve been thinking about switching back to the shoe cages to see if there is a difference). Or maybe it’s just that I’ve been doing more cardio and less weight lifting like I’d been doing all winter long. That could be contributing to weaker glutes which leads to knee pain for me. I’m going to try a few things and see what helps.