I took the day off from work on Friday. I will be doing this every other week until Ironman Arizona. I swam two miles in the VNSO pool and then headed out for a sixty mile ride. I need some place to go and so I headed down to Manhattan Beach from Van Nuys. The Assistant Pastor and his wife from my church are running in the Manhattan Beach 10k next Saturday and asked me to do it also. The L.A. Leggers are going to be doing five miles, so a 10k race would be perfect. It is too late to sign up online or by mail, but I could still do so at Village Runners in Manhattan Beach.
From the valley, the best way to get there is over the Sepulveda pass. Going south it was a challenging, but enjoyable climb with a fun descent. Once Sepulved goes south of Santa Monica Blvd. it becomes a lot less bicycle friendly. There is no longer a bike lane and the road is considerably rougher. I knew there was an entrance to the Ballona Creek bike path from Sepulveda and so I decided to just tough it out until then. It was quite nice to get off of the street and onto a protected bike path.
On weekday mornings the bike path is almost deserted. The only bad part about that is that there are hazards I have never seen when it is busier. On the west end of the bike path, when it parallels the marina, I noticed a seagull fly up over the path and drop something out of its beak. It then flew down and started eating that thing. As I got closer, I realized it was a mussel. It dropped the shell to break it open and then ate it. I witnessed this a couple of other times and noticed that the bike path was littered with broken mussel shells. Those could cause a flat or a wreck or both. When there bike path is busier the sea gulls don't do this.
On weekends I don't take the beach portion of the bike path because it is too crowned and sandy. It is actually safer to ride in the street. But I figured on an autumn weekday there couldn't be too much activity on the beach bike path, so I took that to the South Bay. When I got to the Manhattan Beach pier I headed inland and went to Village Runners to sign up to the Manhattan Beach 10k.
I was at almost exactly thirty miles, so I headed back. The ride north up the Sepulveda pass is a lot harder than the ride south. It is not as steep, but it is a lot longer. The traffic was heavier than when I came south and the bike lane on the north side seems to disappear at various spots. It was kind of a long slog. When I finally got to the top it was exciting to head down the other side. I ended up using the car lane instead of the bike lane because the bike lane is so full of debris that it is unsafe.
I finally got back to where my car was parked at the VNSO pool and did a quick, actually a very slow, run around the park. About 1.3 miles. I just wanted to run after a long bike ride. All in all, not a bad day of training.
I ran ten miles with the L.A. Leggers this morning and after a little rest, I will do sixty on the bike this afternoon.
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