Feeling the BURN

Like Lindsay Lohan looking for her next fix, today I was on the hunt for a sweatastic calorie burning adventure. Since my calf-mishap earlier this week, I decided to take yesterday and today off from running (maybe tomorrow too, but thankfully the calf is feeling much better already). Yesterday I took a complete rest day. I slept in, went to work, and then joined Mike for a delicious dinner and a glass of chardonnay before we headed home to watch Horrible Bosses (funny movie by the way). Life is good. 

This morning, however, I woke up with one thing on my mind: FEEL THE BURN! What's a girl to do when she can't run? Bike ride!

Mike has become quite the little cyclist since his heel spur has sidelined him from running. Two weeks ago he headed out for a 60 mile bike ride. He returned after only 30-some miles, curled up in a ball, started shaking, and mumbling something about "horrible, horrible hills." Clearly they had been scarring enough for him to abandon the ride halfway through. So of course when I decided to go biking this morning there was only one route I wanted to do :)

Luckily he was all for tackling it again, but he was sure to ask me 5,000 times whether or not I seriously wanted to go for it. "I WANT THE BURN!" And off we went...

The first 5 miles were all too familiar, as we headed up West River Drive to Falls Bridge before making a turn off into the "unknown." Mike said he found this route on Map My Run. Whoever designed it is a sick, sick mo-fo. They have got to be a serious masochist.

In the words of Rachel Zoe: "I die"

Every time we crested a hill another one showed up. Every time we saw we could go downhill, we saw another monster uphill ahead of it. It was never ending.

Just came from there...

...supposed to go there next...

..."Oh hell no!"

I'm not going to lie: I walked my fair share of those hills. And I was still out of breathe doing just that. Mike made it through without walking at all, which he wasn't able to do during his first attempt two weeks ago. I felt more confident by the end. I don't know if the hills were getting less steep or if my body was just tolerating more.

Happy because Mike just told me we only had 2 more miles until the flat part

I ate a banana and a bagel before we left. I was sure that would be enough considering I can survive a good 10+ miles on just a banana and a granola bar. I did find myself absolutely starving at one point though, and chowed down on some Jelly Belly Sport Beans.

Eventually we reached Conshohocken at which point we could take the (flat) bike path up to Valley Forge and turn around, making it 60 miles, or we could just jump on the bike path now for 30-some. I gladly jumped at the option to go home since my quads were burning, my butt was sore, and I was feeling hungry again.

Even though the way home was flat I was pretty exhausted and was going really, really slow. I was definitely out of fuel and my stomach was growling at me.

A post-runbike bagel never tasted so good

Final Stats: 32.03 miles, untimed, but somewhere a little over 3 hours I think. Like I said, I was really holding things up.

The thing about this is though, that after all that time and work and quad-burning pain, I only burned between 600 and 1,000 calories (781 says Map My Run). What a gip?! It's not like I'm a calorie-counting nazi, but I know what a 20 mile burn feels like. It feels goooood. Nothing can really compete with running when it comes to that high quantity calorie burn. You just can't get as much bang for your buck with biking.

It's one of the reasons that biking is just not something I really enjoy that much (the other reasons include general discomfort in my neck and buttocks). It's fine to do if you're injured or cross training, but I don't know that I could ever make it "my thing." I was born to run, not to bike.

I was also born to eat these cupcakes, which we got after biking, and which were amazing

P.S. After we finished that ridiculous bike ride I immediately decided how "fun" it would be to run the same course and started making plans to do it. I guess that makes me a masochist too...