Grateful

This has been one busy week!

On Thursday I had 10 x 2:00 intervals on my schedule.  My legs were pretty tired for some reason, so the run was feeling tough.  Very tough.  In fact I think I alternated between wanting to cry and wanting to barf.  Even though my legs were tired my intervals were not too far off the speed I normally get to, so I guess that isn’t too bad.  On my 9th interval I was walking past a couple of overweight louts in sweats and one guy yelled at me, “Swing your arms B*TCH!” 

Hmm…

While I would have loved to say a million things to him I just kept running.  I’m not going to lie though, his statement bothered me and freaked me out.  Thank goodness I was almost done!

Friday was another day at the pool – a 2000m race distance swim.  It went fairly well.  In the afternoons there are some young female synchronized swimmers that use a couple of lanes for practicing.  It is really neat to watch them…and on Friday I even got to listen to some music thanks to them as they had a speaker underwater.

On Saturday I met up with Kelly and a friend of hers for a 2 hour run around Glenmore Reservoir.  We all had to run for 2 hours, but I also had 3 x 2:00 hill repeats + 1:00 of squats at the top of the hill, tacked on at the very end.  Ouch!  Our speeds are all different but we all hung out together.  The chatting and the company was terrific.  It was also a beautiful day out!  It was just that kind of day where you feel lucky to be healthy and able to appreciate the sunshine and beautiful scenery.  We ran out along the south side of the reservoir, just to the base of Weaselhead hill and turned around.  An hour in we hit the biggest hill of our return route.  My friends didn’t have to run the hill repeats with me but they were great sports and joined in on the fun.  Thanks so much ladies!  The two hour run was great.

The plan on Sunday was to meet up for a 3 hour ride, but when we touched base in the morning it looked nasty out.  Grey clouds, cold temperatures and tiny flakes of snow.  Yuck!  We unfortunately put the kibosh on the ride.  The positive thing about no ride was that it opened the way for a last minute opportunity to join my brother, sister-in-law and niece for Mother’s Day brunch.  Yup, my niece is adorable!!  After brunch it was time to head home and knock out a spin workout.  If I couldn’t ride outside then I had a 2 hour power workout to do inside instead.  I’m not sure what I was thinking…I was supposed to do a 2 x 6:00 set, staying in the middle chain ring in the back, and flipping between the big and the small ring in the front.  For some reason I set the workout up as 8 repeats instead of 2!  Oops!  That wound up changing up the workout slightly…and sadly I still had to cut it a bit short as I had to run to the pool.  I had plans to meet Kelly at the Westside Rec Center in the afternoon.  Having company at the pool was great!  Kelly is a great swimmer – she swam competitively in high school.  It was fun attempting to keep up at times.  My legs were pretty tired from the spin so I went with a pull and paddle heavy workout that was a fun change up.  Just as I was finishing up my workout my brother, sister-in-law and niece showed up for some splashing around.  My niece was so excited to see me…it was so cute! 

Westside Rec has a wave pool, a lazy river and a big slide.  It was a lot of fun to play around with my niece and she got the biggest kick out of the water.  I think her favourite thing might just be the big slide!  She’d laugh the entire way down, and then she’d burst into hysterics when she’d see me arrive at the bottom of the slide.  It was a terrific afternoon.  I got to knock out some training, and I got to spend time with the family too.  As my training hours ramp up I’m feeling so grateful for my family and friends that are supporting me on the journey.  Many thanks to all of you!!

And also, congratulations to my Mom on finishing the Santa Barbara half marathon this weekend!!