Recovery week

Recovery, unfortunately, doesn't mean rest. Rather, it means lowering your training volume and/or intensity in order for your body to recover from the previous 2-3 weeks of building. When I'm in full training mode, I really can tell when it's ready for a recovery week. Last week, I was running really well, but feeling tired and achy in the legs. So this week is a recovery week. Instead of tackling the Columbia Pike hill, which is both ugly and ... well ... hilly, I decided to ride to work via the longer but flatter Mt Vernon Trail. It allows me to save the hard work on the hill and just spin my legs, which is a nice way to keep the mileage up, but making it easier on the body. It's also a very very beautiful ride on a nice day and today was gorgeous. I really don't remember an August like this in DC before. It's cool in the mornings with low humidity and today, a gentle breeze meant that the view across the Potomac to the monuments is stunning. It's hard to describe, but the limestone of the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument beyond just shines on the other bank. I love it.

But as I was cycling home tonight, I realised that I feel less safe on the trail than I do on the road. The Mt Vernon Trail, which is one of my favorite in the area, runs alongside the Potomac and is wide and smooth, flat and paved. It runs from George Washington's Mt Vernon home south of Alexandria all the way to the Key Bridge from Arlington to DC. It joins then with the Custis Trail through Arlington which itself joins the W&OD (Washington & Old Dominion - a rail to trail conversion) which runs out through Falls Church, Vienna, Herndon and Reston and terminates beyond Leesburg. We're so fortunate to have this network of recreation and commuter trails in Northern Virginia, but the downside is that it attracts all sorts of idiots. Cyclists who don't wear helmets (I counted 30% one fine Spring weekend morning), or who don't know the etiquette of cycling, including calling out "on your left" to slower cyclists or runners. Runners who run two abreast and don't move over when they hear "on your left" or pedestrians who wander onto the trail without looking to see if anyone is coming their way at 15 mph. And my personal faves - roller bladers whose horizontal action crosses the median line and into the path of oncoming cyclists. Fun fun fun. And in fine weather it's worse and at rush hour, it's doubly worse. At least on the road I only have to worry about drivers and I can move out to occupy the road if necessary. Still, it's such a gorgeous ride, I'll continue doing it and being hyper-vigilant. The cold weather will come soon enough and I'll get the trail to myself.