Resistence is futile

I'm supposed to be enjoying a little downtime right now. I'm supposed to be enjoying the offseason. I'm supposed to be allowing my body to heal from the running injuries that hampered me throughout the past six months.

I'm not doing so well.

Sometimes I simply can't resist doing just a little more. Maybe it's running a little farther than I should right now. Or running a little harder. Or running an extra time or two a week.

Or, like today, running more than twice as far as I typically do during an offseason run and following my run with a reasonably intense bike ride.

I'm an endurance idiot. What can I say?

I can't say no when, in the past week or two, I haven't experienced any of the stiffness in my ankle or tenderness in my Achilles tendon that plagued me during my marathon training.

I can't say no when the weather is unseasonably warm. Fifty-plus degrees here today.

I just had to get out and make the most of the day. So my four-mile run turned into nine miles, the farthest I've run since Twin Cities Marathon on Oct. 2. That's no way to ensure I heal completely. Not smart, I know. But it gets worse.

I wasn't done.

I had to -- just had to -- hop on my bike for what likely was the last ride of the year. Eleven miles of two-wheeled bliss, despite the heavy rain that drenched me in the final four miles. I would've gone farther, even in the cold rain, but daylight escaped me. I biked beyond sunset as it was, and, having already taken the chance of aggravating my running injuries, I wasn't going to roll the dice against rush-hour traffic on the slick, dark streets.

I might be crazy enough to bike in the rain or the dark, but I try not to bike in conditions in which the two are combined. That's just too dangerous. Especially at this time of year.

Even for an endurance idiot like me.