The Red carpet

After a week of rain we've had the most wonderful autumnal weekend. Yesterday I went out on the bike for 2.5 hours. I haven't done that in a long time and I really enjoyed the feeling in my legs. Cycling keeps my fitness up while giving the legs a bit of a rest - but not too much. You're using different muscles which keeps a balance as too much of either discipline can cause problems which I have experienced before. My pals had gone out earlier so I was on my own for the ride. Again I didn't use my Garmin and just went on feel. It felt good. Then I had to clean the bike due to all the muck on the farm roads because of the previous weeks rain. It was filthy. This morning the sun was shining brightly in the blue sky and I headed out for a 14.4 mile trail run. My ultra running pals were either exhausted from a race the day before or hungover from the night before or both - they train hard, race hard and play hard. So it was Derek no mates again. The trail is tough with it's constant ups and down but the scenery makes up for it. At one part there was a red carpet of leaves , absolutely stunning. I lost my water bottle on the first lap and decided that I would continue and treat this as "desert dehydration training". Fortunately I found it on the 2nd lap as running for 2 hrs 13 mins with no hydration isn't advisable. Now I'm home and resting so I can start again tomorrow.