Evil Cross Training

I was supposed to go for a bike ride Sunday. It was GOR. GEOUS.

But it was also the best chance I'd had with all the rain lately to tackle the monstrosity that is my landscaping bed. The grass has encroached 18" in some places, and there are weeds taller than my lilacs. I basically let it go last year - The Year of the Clinging Screaming Baby With All The Screaming - and it's become an embarrassment in a neighborhood of folks so anal about their lawns one neighbor even just had his yard re-sodded to eliminate the dandelions.

I pretty much hate gardening and take a 'however long it takes me to fill one lawn bag with weeds' approach to things (which given the state of things is about 6 minutes).

But I discovered the bottom few inches of mulch (which I'm pretty good at keeping fresh) has - as it should - decomposed into lovely earth full of fat, sassy worms. Which the encroaching grass is having a party with.

So my 10 minutes of weeding before my bike ride turned into 90 minutes of tearing out massive blocks of what's basically sod. Except with weeds and crabgrass. For every handful of grass I tried to pull out, the mulch came up - with varying degrees of resistance - in a 3 inch thick mat, courtesy of the weed blanket.

I pulled grass and weeds in massive mats until my quads were trembling and I got dizzy. Then I spent some time working on installing the retaining wall base because I could sit. (I got in all of 4 bricks out of what will probably be 90, but it's a start.)

I thought I'd put a wall in a few years from now, when money was less of an issue and I could do cosmetic things. Now I need it to be my Maginot Line against the encroaching grass so in future summers I can actually go on my bike rides.

It's worth noting for illustrative purposes that all this effort barely made a dent in the appearance of my poor neglected planting bed.

My legs were so blown at that point I had trouble walking into the house. I thought I'd rest a bit then hit the bike, but I never really recovered and spent the rest of the day assuaging my guilt and OCD by trying to finish small inside projects.

Two days later my hamstrings are still singing the blues - which I find odd considering it was my quads that gave out on me Sunday. I'm irritated at myself for missing the bike ride so soon before the race I haven't trained for. But I'm also oddly proud, because it doesn't just mean I worked hella hard, it means my concerted efforts to remind myself to lift/pull with my legs worked, and that dorky diligence saved my back from untold misery.