Friday, September 5, 2008

Thursday evening run - Friday Bike shopping

Thursday I met Jane and Michele at Michele's house. Jane was going to be a little late and Michele's son Alex really wanted to run with us so I suggested he do our first mile. We mostly ran around the cul-d-sac and luckily at a slowish pace. My legs were very sore from Buns & Ab's class on Wednesday night so I really needed a good warm up.
Once Jane arrived we headed out through the neighborhoods, Michele once again was full of pent up speed and Jane and I just tried to stay as close to her as possible. I think if someone had been watching from a distance they might have thought Jane and I were chasing Michele and she was running away from us as fast as possible, ok maybe that's just what I was imagining it looked like, cause that is about how it felt. The next 4 miles were at a very steady pace with no walk breaks, other than one stop for traffic. Our average pace for the 5 miles was 10:06 the first mile was 11:02 and the rest were under 10min.
Karen was meeting us for the next section of the run we weren't sure of the exact mileage other than we knew we wanted at least 8 miles.
Karen is a new runner and still building endurance so the next 4 miles were at a slower pace. My legs had started to stiffen up a little bit and I was really feeling the soreness from the B&A class so I was happy for the slower pace. Alex was running with us again and Abbie was following us on her bike. I just love those kids and they were a very welcome addition to our run!!! Alex would go back and forth between running with me, his mom and Karen. We were usually all kind of strung out with Abbie riding back and forth between us.
As we were approaching "Michele's Hill" Michele turned to me and said come on... well my brain said no, I am too tired and too sore to charge up that hill, but then my heart said oh come let's at least try.. andI did and it felt so good to fly up that hill, it felt like old times! Last winter we always flew up all the hills but sometime during the late spring early summer I lost my hill legs. I hope last night was a good sign that they are coming back to me. We had one more small hill and then just about .25 of a mile back to Michele's house, I was feeling good from the fast hill climb and starting just pushing the pace and Michele was right by me and then we were just flying side by side and it felt so good.. almost effortless, well ok not effortless I was breathing pretty hard, but I definately had that "Runner's High" thing going on. It was the perfect way to end a fantastic run!! And what a good feeling to be able to run that fast at the end of a 9 mile run!

Today I went to Michele's about 11:00 and after a stop at Mountain Mudd we headed to Jonesboro to pick up her new bike. Jonesboro is about 1.5 hours from Cabot, but Michele and James have family there and happened to pick out her bike a couple of weekends ago when they were up visiting.
Michele had James call ahead to make sure her bike was ready and he reported back that yes they said it was.
We stopped in Searcy for a quick bite to eat and the the rest of the trip flew by in the blink of an eye... or I guess I could say at the speed of chat.
I have never been to Jonesboro and was suprised to see what a cool town it is, or at least the part where the Bike shop was located.
Things started going downhill right away.. the guy says I hope I put the right bike together for you and proceeds to pull down a bike. We are looking at it and first I noticed it was a 51cm bike and then it was like wait a minute this isn't the right bike this is a Dolce.. not a Dolce Elite. The guy says oh no problem I can build the Elite in 25 minutes.... well he goes in the back to get the Dolce Elite and guess what... they haven't even come in yet!!!! WHAT.... I can just imagine the look's on mine and Michele's faces, we had driven 1.5 hours for nothing??????
So the bike guy say's well I have a Dolce Comp, which is a level above the Elite, and he pulls the frame out of the box and it is a really pretty blue. He say's if you want this one I will give you a discount, so Michele say's O.K. We were thinking it is going to take 25 minutes, well about 2 hours and 25 minutes later it is done. O.K. well maybe I exaggerate a little bit, maybe it was only 2 hours later. There were lot's of cool little shops we could have been visiting but we thought it was only going to take 25 minutes so we waited in the bike shop that whole time!!!!!

It was worth the wait... they fitted Michele on her new bike and it is a beautiful bike and fit's just right.

Finally we are done!! Next stop is Michele's Sister and Brother in-law's house for a quick visit. They have a beautiful home in a Golf Course/Country Club community and I got the grand tour. Next we stopped at Michele's Father and Step Mother-in-law's house, also very nice people!!
I guess it was about 6:00 when we were finally headed home... well after a quick stop at Chic Filet for a yummy grilled chick sandwich!!
When we got back to Michele's house I took a quick spin on Isabella and she really was worth the wait.
I had a great day.. sure it had a few bumpy spots but I got to hang out with Michele, meet family and was on hand for Isabella's debut.

I better get to bed, have to get up early to head to Batesville for the Sara Low 5K tomorrow morning.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Isabella's beautiful!! Had a great time yesterday. Remind me next time I see you to give you my cell phone #. I should have done it already but I can't believe y'all were in Searcy Friday and I didn't get to see you :-(.

Gab