I received a text from ‘The Postman’, an old high school buddy in Florida who reads the blog religiously and continues to work out like he’s in his teens. He wrote that he’d lost an old friend…which turned out to be a tree he often used as a turn-around point on one of his running courses. He’d mentioned it was big and old and that it had a name…The Senator…and it was at this point that I thought maybe he was losing it.
Then I did a little research…google is amazing…and found that in fact it was a big and very old tree and it did have a name ‘The Senator’ just as he’d texted. The Senator is located in Big Tree Park in Longwood, Fla. and is a Bald Cypress that towered 165 feet into the heavens until a hurricane took off the top in 1925 and left it at 118 feet…which was its height before a lightning strike ignited and burned it to the ground. Estimates place its age at 1,500 years old when Christ was born…which made it around 3,500 years old when it caught fire. I have stood before the giant Sequoia’s in Yosemite and marveled at these most amazing living organisms…oldest and largest on the planet…and so I can imagine Randy’s thrill at being able to run around something like it every day…and the loss he and others must feel now that it is a 20-foot smoldering remain of its former regal grandeur. Sorry to lose such a precious part of Planet Earth because when they’re gone, there’s no way to get them back.
I had my first bout of knee pain while sleeping last night. Apparently, my torn meniscus did not appreciate the additional moves I put it through on my last Survival Workout. I went ahead with a more traditional Survival Workout…doing the lifts but skipping the sprints, skips, and mine and Kim’s personal favorite…picnic table hops.
I made it home with time to hop on the bike for another outdoor ride. This time it was a little cooler…probably low 40’s…but I failed to make the adjustment in apparel and was quite cold by the end of the ride. Still…I’m thrilled at being able to ride outside in the dead of winter. Who needs Florida?
Survival Workout: 60 minutes. Bike duration: 90 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100-150 for SW and 120 for the bike.
Calories burned: 600 for SW, 1250 for the bike.
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