Weekly Recap

Monday -
Moved the run to 7:30 pm so that we could sleep in. It felt great to sleep in but all day I kind of dreaded running, fortunately it was all for nothing because we had a great run. Michele, Jane, Kelly and I met at the CCC, Debbie B. had just finished a couple of classes and she came along to run a couple of miles with us. It wasn't terribly hot but very sunny so we chose to run through some of the old neighborhoods near the High School for the shade.
5 miles - No bathroom issues
Went to NLR at lunch to see Cheryl's new house... it is VERY cute and has ton's of potential. She spent the week painting and had proffesional wood floor refinishers in so I'm sure it will look like a totally different house the next time I see it.

Tuesday-
Tuesday Night Flyer's Clinic. Dennis has me doing the Intermediate workout while I am training for the San Franciso Marathon. It was a great workout, we were supposed to run interval pace or lactate pace on all of the repeats, I pretty much ran faster than interval pace on all but one or two. I really felt great the whole workout, I got ton's of compliments on my running form... that's always nice ;) Afterwards Michele brought Timmy to the Track and I cooled down with them.
5 miles - No bathroom issues
Livia Brett and I went to Academy Sports in the afternoon... it was fun to go shopping with them. We all got a few new things.

Wednesday-
Early morning run with Jane and Kelly. Michele was going to meet us but "forgot" LOL
We had a good run especially considering it had only been a few hours since the Clinic.
5 miles - No bathroom issues
Wednesday night was Buns & Abs and Jane's Latin Dance. Good workouts!

Thursday-
Rest day.. I wanted to ride with Brenda in the afternoon but she reminded me that I needed a full rest day. It felt weird to do nothing on a Thursday but since I had such a big weekend planned I needed it.

Friday-
FireCracker 5K my goal for this race was to not hurt myself on the downhill and to run without walking on the uphill at the end. Mission accomplished. Not my fastest 5K but probably one of the easiest, even the hill at the end didn't seem too bad. The last .10 I felt good so I picked up the pace and was sprinting towards the finish when my phone flew out of my skirt pocket. DAMN :( oh well, no biggie it didn't hurt the phone so it was OK.
Lot's of Cruisers at this race and lot's of new PR's set!!
After the race we went to the River Trail with Bailey, Jane, Rock, Gary & Curtis for a 20 mile bike ride. I was thinking it would be a laid back ride, HA that is never the case when you ride with Curtis & Gary...when will I learn??? LOL
Curtis took us up some steep hills and on one of them I panicked because of a car and ended up in the grass, but I stayed upright so it wasn't the end of the world, just very frustrating, on another big long hill I made it all the way with no problems, just really really slow. It was an out and back so we had some good but scary downhills on the way back. Bailey and I were freaking out on one of them because we were on the main road going ot the socceer field and it was a steep downhill and a curve and there was a car right beside us, I don't know why they wouldn't just go on... we had to stay in the white line on the shoulder and there was a lot of debris. We were both pretty shaky at the end of that hill!!
After the ride we had lunch with Bailey, Rock and Tim at Cancun in Jacksonville. Yummy chips & salsa!!
Had a short nap and then headed to Tracy's house for a BBQ in the late afternoon. We couldn't stay very long since we both had to get up very early on Saturday morning.

Saturday-
Long Run... We had 18 on the schedule, Michele Bailey and I met at Team 1 and I drove to the River Market. It was a little scary at 5:00am on a Saturday morning, there were a few people of questionable character roaming around but I could also see that there were people setting up at the Farmer's Market so we were scared but we parked and got started anyway. Not sure which bridge we crossed Broadway or Main Street?? but there was a homeless person sleeping on the bridge.. Sad and scary.
Once over the bridge instead of getting on the River Trail we ran on the main road, Michele didn't want to go under the Railroad bridge and neither did I!!!! I think that helped us add on just a little bit. We were feeling good, at 2 miles Bailey needed to stretch so we took a quick water break. We didnt' want to dilly dally too much it was still dark so off we went. At the port-a-pottie by the Golf Course we made a pit stop not just for me all of us needed to use it. I was able to "take care of business" but there hadn't been an emergency, the timing was perfect. I don't know how long that port a pottie has been there but I'm glad it is! Good spot!
We made it through all of the sections of the Trail that are hard for us mentally before the sun came out. We were feeling really good, but we were soaking wet... it was so humid!!! When we were approaching the Big Dam Bridge the sun starting coming out and we thought damn there is the sun it's really gonna get hot now. The Bridge is alway cool, usually a nice breeze blowing. After the BDB we ran down the section of Trail that goes out past the I-430 overpass, just beyond that is a boat launch and there is another port a pottie there... once again I used it and "took care of business" but just like at the golf course there was never an emergency just kind of started to feel the need just before we got to it. The boat launch is also our turn around, It is 2 miles from the base of the Bridge to the boat launch.
Kelly parked at Murray Park and she ran towards us and met us while we were still on that bit of trail, it was good to have her with us!!
Next pick up was at the Golf Course, Michele's friend Karen was meeting us there to run the last 4 or 5 miles with us ( at the time I wasnt' sure exactly how many she would get) she brought ice and cold water, it was so AWESOME to have cold water again!
I was still feeling pretty good, the area under my big toe was hurting a little bit but not as much as usual.
Brenda had brought Dolce out to the River Trail and had met up with us when we were still on the 430 trail.. she rode with us for a little bit but she wanted to get a good workout and riding along side us wasn't going to give her much of a workout so she went back to add on some miles. She caught up with us just before we got to the Golf course and she stayed with us for a little bit but then went back again. The last few miles were slow, but steady and I felt really good. The turn onto Markhama and into the River Market is always my favorite part and today it was even better because that was our destination. We were at 18.7 when we got to Boulevard Bread Co. and I really wanted an even number so Kelly and I ran on towards the Clinton Library... I had hit stop on my Garmin when we got to Boulevard and forgot to turn it back on. Luckily I had asked Kelly how much she needed to get to 10 so I knew how far we had run. I ended up with 19.4 not bad for an 18 mile run :)
Brenda met us at Boulevard after putting Dolce back in the car... we went down to Andina's and had coffee and bagels, well Kelly had a very yummy Cinnamon roll! While we were in line I started to feel a little woozy and had to sit down.. thanks for taking care of me Kelly!
It was fun to sit back and relax and chat with the girls. We saw Melissa from the Hot Leg's running club, she was also the Director of the NLR Women Can Run clinic this year and she was also Cheryl's realator.

I gave Karen and Kelly rides back to their vehicles and then it was time to head home clean up and relax for a little while before going to a cook out Saturday evening.

Sunday-
My left hip flexor was really hurting Saturday afternoon so I decided not to run Sunday morning. It was wonderful to sleep in... partially because of the activities of the night before which included several margartia's I managed to sleep in until 9:00am!!!!! Wow it has been a long time since I've done that. I wasn't feeling too good when I first got up, but I made arrangments to ride with Brenda and Jane along with several others who were meeting at Mt. Carmel church at 1:30.
It was HOT.. the sun was blazing and it was humid!!! Vicki, Lisa F her husband Bruce, Marty, Jane, Brenda and I all rode together. We rode out to the Water Company/ Bethleham Road and then made some kind of loop... anyway the first stop was the Water Dept. we were all so hot and soaking wet!!! Luckily they have a water spicket and we were able to fill our bottles. We were having a really good ride, not easy but not constant hammering either.
We had made a stop at a church under a shade tree and had a little chat, we were just about to start back up when we heard this huge clap of thunder.. you should have seen our faces, we were all shocked where the heck did that come from?? A peek over my shoulder and I could see the dark cloud. We took off and were praying we would made it back before it hit us. It was really starting to get dark and it was lightening all around us, please please please let us get back.. I wasn't worried about rain anymore, I was afraid of the lightening!! Vicki was turning off at her house we could have kept going straight be we turned off with her, but when it came time to turn on her road we kept going, we only had a couple of miles left. The problem besides the weather was by turning we now had to get on 321 to get to the Church a busy and HILLY road. We turned onto 321, the sky was black the we were getting a fierce head wind and the lightening was getting closer. We all just tucked in and rode as fast as we could... the scary part was the hills... I told Brenda we will just get in our small gears and spin up, no sense in killing ourselves, right then we saw a huge streak of lightening... I said maybe that was the wrong thing to say. Luckily we did make it back to the Church and wer able to get our bikes put away and even had time to walk over to the gas station to get our fountain diet cokes before the rain came. Marty even bought our drinks for us :)
We ended up with 24 miles and a very good workout!!!

I ended the evening by going to Starbucks and Wal-Mart with Kelly.

A great weekend!!! Lot's of intense training and playing!!!!

Oh I almost forgot on Friday Kylie and I went for a walk... well I was walking and she was on her bike, my cousin Jamie's little boy Bryson was also with us. At first we were having a nice little walk/ride but then Kylie got this fiirce look on her face and she took off on her bike like a bat out of hell. I had to get onto her when we caught up with her for getting so far ahead. It had been a gradual downhill so I thought she might struggle going back, but no she put on her game face and she beat us back by quite a bit!!!!! I see a future Ironman!!!