Life with Lucy: My heart just sank

Is that a suitcase?  This is my depressed face.

Are you ready?

The count down is starting to look intimidatingly small.  Less than a week until I hit the pavement in San Diego for my 3rd full marathon.  As I get closer and closer to June 3rd, the question I hear most frequently from people I don't run with is, "Are you ready?"

I've encountered this question before my other marathons and I always struggle to answer it.  Before my first marathon, when approached with this question, all I could manage to reply was "I have no idea, but I hope so."  A marathon is an unknown entity in and of itself each and every time, but the first marathon is the biggest unknown.  You know that you are going to be doing something incredibly difficult.  You know your legs will get tired, but you've never experienced that kind of bodily fatigue before.  And you've been told that you're going to hit a mental and physical "wall" at some point in the race, but you've never really hit this wall before.  And you just don't know how hard it will be to break through.  And you worry that sometimes people can't do it.  So the biggest worry on your mind isn't "Am I ready?," it's "Is this possible?"

When the question was presented to me before my second marathon, it gave me a different feeling.  I wasn't looking into the physical unknown anymore.  I knew my body was capable, but I also knew how much it hurt.  I remembered telling everyone who asked me how the first marathon was, that it was by far, the most difficult thing I had ever done in my life.  From the first marathon, I had learned that the biggest challenge during the race was a mental battle.  I had seen the "wall" now, and it was tall and thick and you needed a sledge hammer of a mind to break through it.  So when asked "Are you ready?", I wanted to respond and say yes, my body is ready but I have no idea if my mind is.  I figured people would think I was crazy if I said that, so I simply replied, "I'm as ready as I'm going to be."

And now, encroaching on marathon #3, I'm being asked this question again.  And again, I don't know how to answer.  Looking at accomplishing this insane feat a third time is yet again a different feeling.  This time though, I look at this marathon through the eyes of a marathoner.  Before the first marathon, I didn't know if I would become a marathoner.  Before the second one, I keep thinking that the first time could have been a fluke.  Maybe I wouldn't be able to do it again.  But this time, I feel like a marathoner.  I've done it twice before and the rational half of my brain knows I can do it again.  But the irrational half has an abundance of fears and worries because of that unknown quality of a marathon.  A marathon is a living, breathing, fickle thing.  No matter how well trained you are, how many times you've already done it, how "ready" you are, sometimes people just have bad marathons.  Who knows when it will be my turn to have a bad marathon, and it's scares me to death that this could be it.

Here's the thing though.  If I wasn't nervous or scared or shaking in my boots, that would be more cause for worry than the nerves.  When I was a swimmer, I always did better during a race when there was pressure, stress, or a need to do well.  The races I was nervous for were always the races I did best in.  If I wasn't nervous, I knew I wouldn't do well.  If I didn't feel butterflies in my stomach, then something was missing from that race.  I'm a person who does well under pressure.  In fact, better under pressure.  Before a marathon, I should feel nervous.  If I didn't, then I shouldn't be running it.  Because anybody who isn't nervous about running 26.2 miles, no matter how many times you've done it, is missing a screw somewhere.

For the remaining 6 days before my race, I'm going to continue trying to do all the good things that will keep my body prepared for my race.  I'll hydrate regularly, eat the best I can, try to get lots of sleep, and continue to respect the taper.  I'm going to remember how great it felt to push strong through the wall at Whidbey.  I'm going to keep trying to practice fighting the wall in my mind.  I'm going to remember why I'm doing this, so that when I want to stop during the tough miles, I can remind myself.  And when someone asks me if I'm ready, I think I'm going to revert back to the second half of my first answer to this question.  "I hope so."  Because I really do.

Life with Lucy: Look who's all growed up now!

Thanks for the new bed, mom!

Respect the Taper

Yes, respect the taper.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term "taper", here is a quick definition: 2-3 weeks prior to a race, it is a decrease in intensity, decrease in distance, decrease in everything (except rest...increase that).  Right before the race, when your mind is freaking out and telling you to push your hardest and run your farthest, DON'T DO IT.

I totally understand the purpose of the taper.  For the past several months, I've been increasing mileage, increasing speed, and increasing strength.  I've been pushing my body to its limits and then pushing it farther.  My muscles are torn, tired, and vulnerable.  And now they need to rest.  They need to repair and strengthen themselves so that when I absolutely and totally push them to their limit in about a week and a half, they will be ready for it.  My legs are happy right now.  They are saying thanks for the rest.  Unfortunately for them, they have no idea what's coming.

So yes, the taper is essential, important, and should be respected at all costs.  But mentally, I think the taper is sometimes the hardest part of training.  As I said before, for the past several months, I've been pushing myself farther and faster...so now, right before the race, when I want to do everything I can to keep preparing, I'm supposed to hold back, go slow, shorten my runs.  My mind doesn't grasp that too easily.  Today I went for a run, aiming to go slow and steady for 50 mins, but my legs felt great.  And my mind didn't want them to go slow and steady.  My mind wanted them to push harder, like I've been telling myself to do for so long now.  But instead I have to think backwards--slow down, relax, breathe.  Here is a picture of my pacing graph from the Nike+ website:

I'm in the "blue" level on the Nike+ website, having logged a total of 704.72
miles since I got my watch in September.  That's a lot of miles, I think.  

See the argument I had with myself on this run?  See the ups and downs of winning voices in my head?  Speed up, no slow down, no too slow, wait go slower.  Running is such a mental battle.  The physical part is only about 10% of what it takes to make it through.  Maybe less.

Luckily during this taper, I've been incredibly busy and unable to think too much about tapering.  We're encroaching on the near end of the school year and suddenly I find myself drowning in the intricacies of teaching.  Teaching often pulls you in a thousand different directions all at once, but this week has been especially overwhelming.  It's like trying to solve a puzzle, but the pieces don't fit together.  And there's a few extra pieces.  But someone told you that you can put the puzzle together, that it will all fit.  So you keep trying.  And trying.  Until you realized you're facing an insurmountable task.  But even then, you don't want to give up.  Right now I have all these pieces of things that I want to fit in my brain.  But suddenly it feels like my brain is at capacity.  I'd make a list, because lists are great, but I don't know where to start or what to even call it (I simply can't have a list without a title).  "Things to think about," "Impossible problems to be solved," and "These things are important" are all possible but not necessarily all-encompassing titles.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not complaining about this.  I love my job.  I love feeling like what I'm doing matters.  If I fit only 2 pieces of that puzzle together and the rest fall away, I've still done something.  And something is always better than nothing.  I'm thankful that I feel involved, overwhelmed, and consumed by my job (when I'm at my job).  Most of the things that would land themselves on this theoretical list are pretty amazing.  For instance, here are things I have to remember for tomorrow:

1)  Plan my reading lesson:  Choose a great book, teach children to love and think deeply about that book.  Encourage them to do the same with their own book.

2)  Count coins for our Change for Nepal fundraiser:  My brother is currently saving the world in a small village in Nepal by helping to build a school and an orphanage.  I decided to help him raise money for school supplies by holding a coin drive at my school.  So far we've raised $992 in four days.  All of it in pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.  Which have to be counted by hand.  Tomorrow is the last day and I hope that we will have to spend a very long time counting more coins.

3)  Give a math test: Ok, this is not so fun.  But hopefully it will serve as evidence of all the awesome skills I've taught my kids in the past few weeks.

4)  Prep and host our "First Grade Coffeehouse Poetry Publishing Celebration":  This involves making lots of iced tea, setting up the classroom to look like a coffeehouse so that the kids can have a poetry reading and share their awesome poems with their parents.  There will be smiles, excitement, snacks, streamers, and a lot of stress for me.  But it's stress I'll take.  It's stress I've brought upon myself because if you could see how proud these kids are of their poetry, you'd do it too.

And those are just the big things.  There are other things like grading papers, sharpening pencils, solving the social dilemmas of 7 year olds, completing reading assessments, trying to remember if I have any meetings, and eating that are kind of important too.  The list is endless.  

And so, with this unnamed "list" of things in my brain for the past few weeks, tapering has been the last thing on my mind.  This has resulted in one of the easiest tapers I've ever had.  But there's still a week and half left.  I guess I shouldn't speak too soon.  Regardless here's one more list to close us out called "How I Plan to Respect the Taper, If All Goes According to Plan":

1)  Slow down:  As much as I love seeing the number 8 at the beginning of my pace, a 9:15 pace on a run is OK right now.  In fact, it's good.

2)  Drink water: This is one of the things that has slipped off the unnamed list of things at school.  Hydration is key.  Next week I will do better.

3)  Don't drink alcohol: I like to take a week off from alcohol before a big race.  I will have my last drink Sunday afternoon at a fellow runner's birthday party.  Then it will be more of item #2.

4)  Sleep: I will try to go to bed early all next week, because come next Saturday night, I know I will most definitely not be sleeping, especially with a close to 3 AM wake up call.

5) Think about the race: In trying to check so many things off so many lists, I haven't been thinking much about my mental plan for this race.  I need to look at the map, the elevations, and the mile markers and mentally prepare for this thing.

6) Stop thinking I suck at running right now: I've had an amazing training season.  I felt great, ran strong, and am faster than I've ever been.  In the taper, I forget that.

7) Enjoy some Lucy love: Because the Lucy face makes everything amazing.

8) Breathe and enjoy life:  Because this is my life.  It's what I've chosen and it's what I have.  Don't get so caught up in all the lists that I forget to enjoy all that is good about it.  Because in the end, the lists won't really matter anyways.

A career in T-shirt collecting

Can 4 years of running and 3 years of "racing" be considered a career?  The Merriam Webster online dictionary has 4 definitions, but here are the 2 commonly known ones:

1) a field for or pursuit of consecutive progressive achievement especially in public, professional, or business life.
2) a profession for which one trains and which is undertaken as a permanent calling


I'm not sure if my running fits the first definition, although I'm not sure exactly what "public" life is.  If public simply means that I run in public (and blog for the wide public to read about it), then I fit.  But no matter, because if my running doesn't fit the second definition to a T, I don't know what does.  "A profession for which one trains"?  Um, yeah.  "Undertaken as a permanent calling"?  Yes, most definitely.  I may not have believed it when running found me 4+ years ago, but now I think I can safely say that running has become a permanent fixture in my life.  And often, it is running that calls me.  It pulls me out on the streets, helps me battle through tired days, helps me celebrate the great ones, and gives me a reason to feel accomplished in my life.  And until something happens that absolutely requires me to stop running, it will be a permanent part of my life for the foreseeable future.


But I didn't start this post to talk about the definition of a career.  Instead, I'd like to talk about how I'm a pack rat.  At least when it comes to clothes.  There are items of clothing in my closet that it would be embarrassing to admit the year I bought them (Sierra can attest to this if you'd like proof, she looks disdainfully at certain articles of my wardrobe every time she sorts through my closet because she does know when I bought most of the items).


I'm getting better at weeding out some of the older, "regular" articles of clothing.  I did a huge cleaning of my closet when I moved in February.  Almost 2 garbage bags full of clothes (and a 3rd full of worn out running shoes).  But when it comes to items that have any ounce of sentimentality in them, I can't bring myself to let go.  I still have my D.A.R.E shirt from 5th grade, complete with all the signatures of my classmates reminding me not to do drugs.  And all those T-shirts we made with puffy paint in middle school for the swim team?  Still have those.  I have every single homecoming class shirt, from our Back to the Future themed year to our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt.  I've got swim team hoodies, college hoodies that I never went to but visited while on the market for schools, and random t-shirts like this one:

Because when I lived in Brooklyn, the L
train was an awful train that was always
under construction, late, and never worked
when you wanted it to.  So angry Williamsburg
artists made shirts like this.

Do I ever wear this endless pile of sentimental clothing?  No, not really.  Maybe to bed.  Maybe under a hoodie on a Lucy walk.  But most of the time, these t-shirts are folded away in my dresser, sitting there holding onto their sentimentality until they finally disintegrate into nothingness one day.

So let's contemplate for a moment, the idea of race t-shirts.  Do they hold sentimental value?  Yes, every race means something, whether it's a 5K or a marathon, there are memories in that t-shirt.  Even though in most of the races I didn't even wear the shirt, I seem to invest my memories in them.  But at least with these shirts, they are getting their full use.  I wear them proudly.  Each time I put them on in preparation for a run, I momentarily flash back to the race that I earned them.

Not every race has a shirt.  There's that first 10K I did 3 and a half years ago that was so small I don't even remember the name of it (but I remember Sierra waking up to drive me down to Seward Park and then sleeping in the car while I ran).  And then the Jingle Bell 5K this year--they somehow gave me a youth large shirt instead of the small adult I'd asked for, and these 2 sizes are nowhere close to being the same.  I gave that one up to Goodwill (although I still have moments of thinking I shouldn't have).  

Are there still memories for the races I don't have shirts?  Yes of course.  Do I worry that one day I will forget them if I don't have a shirt?  Yes.  Am I a little bit crazy and neurotic?  Yes.  But my race shirts tell a story.  They tell the story of my running career.  Since we haven't delved into the past lately, let's tell the story.

Seattle Rock N Roll Inaugural Half Marathon.
June 27, 2009

My first big race.  My first half marathon.  The one that began it all.  No one told me to sign up for it.  No one convinced me to run that far.  No one ran it with me.  It was me.  All me.  I chose to do it.  I remember my long runs, counting the miles as each week I ran the farthest I'd ever run (7 miles, 8 miles, 10 miles, 11 miles).  I trained for it by myself.  I ran it by myself.  I felt awesome.  And then I wanted more.

Seattle Rock N Roll Full Marathon
June 26, 2010

I first took a picture of this shirt by itself, and then I realized that this race really looked like this:

My first race with Team in Training.

When I ran the half the year before, I saw all these people in purple shirts cheering each other on, smiling, having fun together.  I decided I wanted running friends.  So when I got a flyer in the mail for an informational meeting, I signed up, went, and started practice the next morning.  The white shirt is the participant practice shirt and the purple one was my race shirt.  I had originally signed up for the half marathon again, but got convinced into training for the full.  So I trained for the full and ran it, surprising even myself.  As I finished the race, I remember thinking that it was by far the hardest thing I had ever done in my life.  It hurt like hell.  I cried when I was done.  Then I laughed.  After that, I ate a lot.  And 2 days later, I wanted to do it again.

Seattle Seafair Torchlight 8K
July 31, 2010

This was the first shorter race that I ran for fun with friends.  It was a gorgeous day to run along the viaduct, and I remember thinking that it was great to be seeing that amazing view at mile 4 of an 8K instead of mile 22 of a marathon.  I got to enjoy it a lot more.  And I love the t-shirt.  Still one of my favorites.

Amica Seattle Half Marathon
November 28, 2010

I didn't actually run this race.  I got a stress fracture in my knee at the end of the summer and had to skip out on this one.  I still picked up the race packet and t-shirt because I sold my race numbers to a friend so he could run his first half marathon (not exactly legal, but people do it, shhh don't tell anyone).  I kept the shirt because it wasn't my friends size and because I still wanted to remember the race I couldn't do.  It helps me remember to take care of my legs so I can keep running more races.

St. Patty's Day Dash
March 13, 2011
oops, and some red toes

Another fun race with friends.  It was cold, rainy, and I was just about to start training for my 2nd marathon and 2nd event with Team in Training.  We met at the old TNT office before this race and it helped me get excited for the upcoming season.

Seattle Rock N Roll Half Marathon
June 25, 2011
someone got jealous and wanted her toes
in the picture too

This was my second half marathon.  It seems as though the Seattle Rock N Roll has become a sort of ritual for me now.  I ran the inaugural race and the year after.  Now having done the race 3 years in a row and currently signed up for the 4th, I think it's going to become a staple every year.  The 2011 race was the one that I almost broke the 2 hour time but was off by a minute.  Nonetheless, I was still 15 minutes faster than my 1st half marathon.

Seattle Seafair Torchlight 8K
July 30, 2011

I ran this race with new friends from my half completed marathon training season with Team in Training.  In my second season with Team, I made some really great friends, and this race reminds me of them.  We dressed up as pirates.  I embraced the idea of a running skirt.  Good times.

Victoria Full Marathon
October 9, 2011

Three shirts again for this one.  The red race jacket--best race shirt ever.  It's a zip up jacket that has long sleeves with thumb holes and a pocket in the back that has a headphones hole on the inside so that you can weaver your headphones up your back to your ears.  This is essential because you don't want your headphones cord flopping around in front or behind you.  The orange shirt underneath is the telltale sign of a Team in Training mentor.  I signed up as a mentor for TNT that season and helped 8 people raise money for LLS and watched them finish their races.  Pretty awesome.  Then the purple shirt was my race shirt with the new Team in Training logo.  You probably can't see it, but there is a googley eye stuck to the fish (the symbol for the Washington/Alaska chapter of TNT).  That eye bounced up and down for 26.2 miles (or 42 kilometers, since I was in Canada and that's what the race was marked in).  Even post washing, the eye still holds on.  This was an awesome race.  I loved the size of it, the city, the people, the weather, the course.  I would definitely do it again.  That is, after I've done all the other races I can't wait to do first.

It was shortly after the Victoria marathon that I started blogging.  So the remainder of this story you've heard.

Amica Seattle Half Marathon
November 27, 2011

You can relive this story here.

The now shirtless Jingle Bell 5K belongs here.  December 11, 2011.  Picture a white long sleeved t-shirt with green and red stuff on it.  In the actual race, Erica and I wore matching "I heart Santa" t-shirts and sequined Santa hats.  There was a very cold beer garden at the end.  The beer gardens are half the fun of these shorter races.  You get to quench your thirst and take back in the carbs you burned all at the same time.

St. Patty's Day Dash
March 17, 2012

I guess I didn't write about this one.  It was cold.  It was wet.  I got a time I'm pretty proud of (maintaining a 8:25 pace for just under 4 miles).  Then it snowed.  We drank beer.  It was St. Patrick's Day.  

Whidbey Island Half Marathon
April 15, 2012

This was an awesome race.  Beautiful day.  Great friends.  Surprisingly awesome PR.  Not so great shirt.  I'll get over it though.

There it is up until now.  Not half bad for just 3 short years of races.  This story is no where close to being over yet.  In less than 2 weeks, hopefully I'll add another shirt to the accomplished stack.  And then 3 weeks after that, another.  And then another in October when I run the Nike Women's Half Marathon in San Francisco.  And maybe I'll start adding some biking shirts to this pile.  As long as I stay healthy and my legs keep working, I'll be running.  One day my shirt pile will get too big.  When that happens, Mom you should plan on receiving a large box in the mail with worn out racing shirts so that you can make something awesome out of them for me.  A quilt?  A wall hanging?  I'll leave it up to you.  Don't worry, I'll give you at least another year or 2 to think about it :)

Until then, as long as you are all still interested in hearing the story, I'll keep writing it as it develops.  Actually, I'll probably keep writing it whether anyone else is interested or not.  But it's much more fun to have some friends along for the ride.

I did nothing today

Kind of.  I mean I tried to do nothing.  In reality, I did laundry, went Trader Joe's shopping, bought a new pair of running shoes, and went for a 4 mile run with Lucy.  But aside from the laundry, all of that happened after 4 pm.  

There was a 9:45 am, 50 mile bike ride planned for today that got scrapped yesterday evening after I decided I want to enjoy some time out with my friends without worrying about needing to wake up early.  We ended up postponing the ride to 12:00 with an easier route planned.  But then when I woke up this morning, it was raining in Seattle (surprise!), and we pushed the ride even further back to 2 pm.  But 2 pm rolled around and the rain still hadn't passed, so we scrapped the ride completely.  I'm not interested in riding in the rain on wet slippery roads and risking potential injury 2 weeks before the marathon.

So instead, I stayed in bed for a ridiculously long time.  And then when I got out of bed, I went straight to the couch and watched episode after episode of Glee (Santana and Quinn do have hearts--yay for Rachel as prom queen!) and Grey's Anatomy (not quite caught up yet, but I've been missing some very important drama).  Lucy and I snuggled for hours.  It was great.

But it's kind of funny, because the whole time I was laying on the couch, I kept forgetting that it was OK to do so.  Every now and then I would think OK, time to get up and get started with the day.  And then I remembered that no, THIS was my day.  Doing nothing.  Being OK with it.  I felt like I was doing something wrong, like there was something else I should be doing.  I wanted to be doing just what I was doing, relishing in the time I had to spend with Lucy, but it felt like I was being naughty.

I can't remember when I became a person who has trouble relaxing.  Just this past week I was complaining about how I've felt so "go go go" lately with no spare time, and now here I was with nothing but time and I couldn't handle it.  It seems that I've forgotten how to sit and be still.  Generally speaking, I don't think this is a bad thing, but sometimes it can bite me in the butt.

It makes me wonder how I'm going to handle this summer as I work only 2 half days and then my regular Friday hostessing shift.  So much time to fill!  Maybe I can retrain myself to enjoy a few hours of downtime.  More than likely though, going off the trend I've been on lately, I'll find ways to fill that time and suddenly the summer will be over and I'll ask myself where it all went.  We'll see.

Meanwhile, it's time to begin mentally preparing for another week filled with work, Lucy-walking, non-Lucy running, and biking.  Here goes.

Happy face!!

I will give you 2 guesses to figure out why this Lucy puppy face is so ridiculously happy.

Ok, go.

What's that?  Did she just expend all her energy eating the world's largest, tastiest baby carrot?

Nope, try again.

You're not very good at this game.  No, I did not just let her lick her butt for as long as she wanted without yelling at her, poking her, or slowing tipping her over from the top curve of her back.  If you knew me at all, you would know that would never allow that to happen.

Ok, guessing is over.  She is fantastically amazingly smiley faced because she got to do this today:

She may not look as happy here, but I think
that's because she was confused about why
I kept sticking my phone in her face.

See the high step of the paw?   The angled flap of the ears?  That, my friends, is no walking step.  That is a run!  Yay!!  Lucy got to run!  Guilt assuaged.  Satisfaction with spending time with my dog heightened.  Life good.  Incomplete sentences over.  For now.  Oops, now.

A number of circumstances aligned in order for Lucy and I to finally run again together.  The main reason is because I will be missing my Team in Training long run this Saturday morning in order to attend a training.  Now that I'm officially a National Board Certified Teacher, I get invited to exciting conferences where I get to learn about how to be a "leader."  I remember learning how to be a leader in Girl Scouts back in elementary school.  Hopefully this conference will be a little more sophisticated.  Nonetheless, it is causing me to miss my regular Saturday run.  Normally, if I miss a Saturday run, I'd make it up on Sunday.  However, this Sunday, I have another 50 mile bike ride planned, so running won't be happening.  The next option used to be Friday evening long runs, but I've been working Friday nights as a hostess at a local brewery for about a year and a half now (yay free shift beer and half priced dinner!), so that's not an option either.

So, I get pushed to a Thursday evening long run.  The regularly scheduled bike ride for Thursday was effectively cancelled because I wasn't the only one who couldn't attend.  Long runs after work are particularly difficult.  When I was training for the Victoria Marathon, I had a week where I had to do a 14 mile run on a Thursday after school, and it was miserable.  I remember my legs refusing to work.  Today wasn't that bad (I made it 9.52 miles according to my watch), but it wasn't my best 90 minute run by far.  Here are the splits from the run today:

My pace is incredibly up and down, which is pretty much how the run felt.  I started out with Lucy knowing that she wouldn't run the full 90 minutes with me.  It's been several weeks since we ran together, and dog conditioning is like human conditioning--I just didn't know how far or fast she can handle right now.  I never take her on runs longer than 7 miles and typically, she doesn't like running fast anyways.  When we were both running together fairly frequently, I could coax her into a sub 9 minute pace, but I think she's much happier trotting along at a 10 minute pace.

You can see though that she trucked right along with me the first mile.  I think she was just ecstatic to be out there with me.  When I got home from work and started putting on running clothes, she actually got depressed and went and lay down in the bedroom.  But then once the empty poop bags started getting folded and stuffed into the water belt, she was crying and running laps between the living and bedroom to warm up.

In mile 3, we had fun figuring out how to get pictures of dog running in action.  This was fun and entertaining, but did slow our pace.  Here are the results of the photo shoot:

Weird close up of my hand, water belt, and
a prancing paw way down in the corner.

A little better after I remembered I can push
the volume button on the side of the phone
to snap the shot.  Half a smiley face and
an in action human foot.

A little better, but she could easily be walking
here with a very disturbed looking ear.

After many more of these fun shots, we finally settled on the good one posted up above.  And then there's smiley face, which I will post again.

Because it's just awesome.

At mile 4, we hit some pretty tough hills, and I can't blame the slow pace entirely on Lucy.  I live at the top of Phinney Ridge, and to get back home, we have to climb the ridge.  Then once we got to the top, Lucy was pretty spent, so I kept it at a slow pace for her until I could drop her off.  We made it back home in exactly 4 miles.

After dropping Lucy off, I went back out for the remaining 50 minutes of my run.  I ran around the zoo and hooked up with the outer loop of Green Lake.  I have a love/hate relationship with Green Lake.  I've run it a ton, so sometimes I get sick of it.  But it's a good flat loop for tired days.  On nice sunny days though, it gets packed with runners, walkers, and people who feel the need to come outside only when it's sunny.  I looped a little over half the lake in miles 6 and 7 and you can tell I was anxious to get through there.  I entertained myself by observing the odd selection of clothing runners choose to wear around the lake.  First of all, there's a lot of cotton.  The first lesson I learned as an endurance runner: cotton is not your friend.  Invest in a tech tee (or run a race where they give you a free one).  You'll love it, I promise.  There was also one 20-something looking guy who sped by me wearing minimalist shoes and cargo pants (ouch?).  I'm also baffled that people are still wearing long sleeved running shirts.  Put them away!  Don't you know that if it's above 55 degrees in Seattle you are supposed to wear shorts and t-shirts?  It's the rule.  And then there's the big basketball looking guys wearing big basketball shorts and shoes, loping along as if their knees can't bend.

I'm sorry, I'm not judgmental.  Really.  Just trying to occupy my mind on the longest run I've done by myself in what I can safely say is probably over a year.

After speeding through Green Lake, I slowed the pace a little to make it back up the hill towards home.  As I climbed, I fought the good fight again, telling my legs to keep moving.  I'm certainly feeling a strength in my legs I haven't felt before, but they are tired.  I've pushed them through many miles on foot and pedal in the past couple weeks, and I think they are happy to be tapering in the running at least.  

I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that my bike rides aren't going to ruin the good effects of my marathon taper.  San Diego is 2 weeks and 2 days away.  I'm thinking after the 50 miler this weekend, I'll go easy on the bike the week before the race to give my legs the full rest and recovery time they need.

For now, I'm going to continue filling my bottomless pit of a stomach with food, try to get some good sleep, and look forward to another run with Lucy on Saturday after my conference.  Because then I will get to see this face again:

Yes, again :)

Life with Lucy: Salt

Don't worry, no need to shower.  I'll take care of it.

Things I've given up since becoming a maniac

It was another great weekend.  And it feels great to be able to say that again.  The weather was gorgeous (yay for almost hitting 80 degrees in the middle of May--unheard of in Seattle!), and I got to spend most of the weekend out enjoying it.

I did 10.3 very hilly miles around Lake Youngs with Team in Training on Saturday.  Although the mileage was much lower than my long run last weekend, it was a mentally tough run for me.  Lake Youngs is a 9 mile loop trail that runs around a reservoir, but during the entire length of the trail, you get 1 minuscule glimpse of the water.  Other than that, it's trees, grass, and hills.  Lots of them.  Over and over.  With very few flats in between.  For the first long run of the taper, it was a tough one.  But it was good mental practice for the marathon for me.  One of my goals is to run this marathon without stopping.  On this run, as I rounded each corner to face another hefty hill, my mind told me I wanted to stop.  So I practiced my mental battle.  I rehearsed the argument I know I will have in my head the day of the marathon when the miles drag on and my legs begin to drag too.  My body is trained and ready for San Diego, but I always question the readiness of my mind.  This was good, reassuring practice for a race that seems to be inching closer and closer.

On Sunday, we did a 53 mile bike ride out to an awesomely yummy bagel store called Blazing Bagels.  I really like planning bike rides based on where we are going to stop and eat in the middle.  The food is obviously the most important part.

REAL New York style bagels, not the typical bread-shaped-
like-a-bagel that you find all over Seattle.

We had a great group this week.  Lots of go-git-em attitudes, smiles, and conversation.

See the blue sky and shorts?  Yay beautiful Seattle weather.

I felt great on this ride.  I'm definitely developing my strength on the bike and getting comfortable with speed.    Erica and I even got the official word from Ironman Jason that we "looked strong" both this week and last week.

Look at us looking strong.  And look at my
awesome new-to-me bike jersey (thanks MacKenzie!)

And then there were some awesome sights to be seen along the way.

During a quick break at mile 41.  Not a bad
way to spend a day.

In between all this, Lucy got her walks, and I went to a Seattle Sounders game.  These games are awesomely fun, especially because I get to see people I haven't seen much of lately (namely, non running/cycling friends).  With the crazy training schedule I've embarked upon lately, it seems as though there are a lot of things that have fallen to the wayside.

Here is what my weeks have looked like lately (not counting work and semi-important other stuff):

Monday Rest (long Lucy walk)
Tuesday 40-50 Minute Team Run (hills, "tempo" oops intervals, or now easy runs since we're in taper mode) following 30-40 minute Lucy walk
Wednesday 30-40 Minute Run with Running Club at work (Lucy goes to daycare)
Thursday 1.5-2 hour bike ride following 1 hour Lucy walk
Friday Rest (mainly because I work 2 jobs on Fridays and have no time, not even for Lucy)
Saturday Long Team Run (lately these runs have had mileage in the double digits) followed by 1+ hour Lucy walk
Sunday Long Bike Ride (40-50 miles the past few weekends) preceded or followed by 1+ hour Lucy walk

As training for both the San Diego Marathon and Seattle to Portland bike ride have increased, time for other things in life has decreased drastically.  I suddenly feel like I'm constantly on the go, playing catch-up, never having enough time in the day.

So now it's time for another list entitled "Things I've given up since becoming a maniac" (hence the title of this post).  Here goes:

Lazy Sundays.  I used to love nothing more on Sundays than sitting on the couch, reading, watching Hulu or Netflix on the computer, working, or writing.  Now Sundays are filled with bike rides, out in the sun, with friends, not wallowing in my own thoughts.  I don't miss this (most days).

Going "out" on the weekends.  I gave up Fridays a long time ago.  Saturdays mornings are for long runs, so now I've replaced Friday night outings with working, eating, and going to sleep early.  I still make it out and about on some Saturday nights to see friends and be social, but not as...well...let's call it as "intensely" as I used to.  But I'm pretty sure I have more fun (most of the time) on my runs and bike rides than I used to on my nights "out."  And I'm certainly being healthier.  I don't really miss it (most days).

Television.  This happened a long time ago, but I'll mention it here.  I kicked my TV to the curb (almost literally--it was placed and not kicked, but it was on the the curb) over a year ago.  Even when I had the TV, I didn't watch it.  I haven't had cable since I moved to Seattle and the combined DVD/VCR player (yes, built in VCR, it was that old) was nonfunctional.  So I got rid of it.  I don't miss it (all days).

Netflix and Hulu.  This is a new development.  Before STP training, when I still enjoyed lazy Sundays, I liked watching marathons of TV shows on both of these websites.  A few months ago, I was watching marathons of Madmen, the Tudors, Parenthood, and a number of other shows.  I was an avid Glee, Private Practice, and Grey's Anatomy fan.  Right now, I can't remember the last time I watched anything.  Are Rachel and Fin still engaged?  I don't know (don't tell me!).  Is Addison still semi-successfully staying away from Sam?  I don't know (don't tell me this either!).  Maybe one day I'll watch it.  But right now, I don't miss it.

Bringing loads of work home.  Does this need to be explained?  I don't miss this.

Are we noticing a pattern here?

Most things I've given up I don't miss.  Generally, my life is a million times more satisfying and fulfilling right now than it has ever been.  I feel healthy, fit, happy, and accomplished on a daily basis.  But there are some things that I've had to give up that I do miss.  Here's that list:

Time with non-running friends.  Yes, I still get to see them (reference to the Sounders game above), but not as often and I used to and not as often as I'd like to.  By the time I get home from running, cycling, and the rest of life, I'm exhausted and not motivated to go out and do more.  Time seems to have become a precious commodity that I just can't find enough of.

Speaking of time--Time for catching up with far away friends.  There are many East Coast friends that I feel like I've been severely neglecting lately.  If you are one of those friends (and you know who you are), know that I think about you and want to talk to you.  I'm simply being selfish and spending too much time outdoors being active lately.  I miss you.  And I promise I will call soon, really.

Sunday Skyping with the fam.  We used to have regular Sunday Skype dates with me, my mom (in New York) and my sister (in Sweden).  Sometimes my brothers and dad would join in.  But I think we've all been too busy for this lately.  I won't have time for it until at least after the marathon, probably a little longer than that.  I miss this.

Running with Lucy.  This whole blog started because I wanted to tell the story of how Lucy inspired me to start running.  And now, years later, here I am with a schedule that prevents me from ever running with Lucy.  I MISS THIS.  Everyday, the thought that I can't run with Lucy tugs at my heartstrings, fills my body with a nagging, justified guilt.  Without Lucy, none of this would have happened, and here I am making my running (and biking) more important than hers.  I find this unacceptable.  And I don't know what else to do.  And the contradictions that exist in my brain because of this are mind-bending.  But for now, I will have to eke through these next three weeks until the marathon, and then Lucy will run with me again.  Until then, we take lots of long walks.  And this time is her time.  I won't give it to anyone else.

Life is full of give and take.  One thing must take the place of another.  There's only so much time in the day.  Sometimes the things that fall away can fall away forgotten without regret.  Others fall away, and the hole is noticed and missed.  But if there's one thing in life that I've worked really hard to do, it's to live without regret.  So now the goal is to fix the things I'm missing.  Figure out how to balance the new things that make me happy with the old things that made me (and others) happy.  I've been running for a long time now, but the way that it and biking have suddenly overtaken my life is new.  With time, I will adjust and things will level out again.  Bear with me until then.  Right now, I'm going to bring this post to a close, because someone important needs some love.

And giving love to the important ones isn't
something that I will selfishly let fall to
the wayside.

Thanks Mom!

Lately, my hands have begun reminding me of my mother’s.  The youthful elasticity that my hands enjoyed in my teenage years and early 20’s has begun to release a bit.  I remember as a young child, clinging to my mother’s hand, I would move the skin on the back of her hand up and down, watching as it slowly formed back into the flat shell it’s supposed to be—but my skin…my skin would pop back easily as if there were rubber bands underneath it.  Not anymore though.  Now my hands are slowly beginning to remind me of that same quality, the slow rebound of skin that is indicative of age.

Hands tell the truth of life.  You can’t hide the scars or the age in your hands.  In fact, the past few summers as I worked at a restaurant in between school years, it was not people’s faces I looked at to decide whether or not to ID for alcohol (because faces can be deceiving), it was their hands.  The wrinkles on their knuckles, the creases in their skin.  It is these things that truly tell of age, experience, and a life well lived.

My mother’s hands are records of all the amazing things she has accomplished in her life, and I am in no way disappointed that my hands are beginning to take the shape of her's.  If I could have the experience of anyone’s hands, I would choose my mother’s.  I don’t tell her enough, but my mother is a pretty amazing woman.  Her childhood was certainly not the easiest.  After losing her mother to Leukemia at the age of 3, she grew up under the tutelage of a stepmother who was never able to accept her as a daughter of her own or a child deserving of respect and kindness.  But did this deter her from seeking out a happy, healthy life of her own?  No way.

She went to college, met and married a wonderful man (my father, of course).  With my father, she created a large, compassionate, kind-hearted, driven family.  In addition to her own many varied successes throughout her life, we 4 children are evidence of the kind of person she is.  A 30-year-old architect in Sweden, a 28-year-old teacher in Seattle, a 25-year-old med student in Buffalo, and a 23-year-old architect currently saving the world one village at a time in Nepal.  We may have had our struggles along the way, but look at where we are now.  We could not have gotten here without her.

And so, for mother’s day, I give you a list of the top 3 things I’ve learned from my mother and her experienced hands.

3) Be independent.  You can’t rely on the world to take care of you.  One day, you will have to take care of yourself.  One day you will have to budget your own money, motivate yourself through school, create your own career, survive on your own.  Be your own you.  Be strong.  Be independent.  But if there’s ever a moment that you just need mom, don’t be afraid to lean on a strong shoulder to get through the toughest parts (who did I call crying like a teenager when I totaled my car 2 years ago?  One guess).  But then take a deep breath, pull yourself together, and deal with it one step at a time.

2) Choose your battles wisely.  In a house filled to the brim with 4 growing bodies, it’s easy to step on someone else’s toes.  But when your toes get stepped on, sometimes it’s just not worth it to turn around and heel stomp their foot in return.  Sometimes your toes will get stepped on, and sometimes you just have to let it happen.  But that certainly doesn’t mean to give up all the battles, to step back and let the world happen to you.  Choose the right battle to fight, the one that really matters, and fight it.  Fight it with all your might.  Make it count for this important battle. 

1) It CAN be done.  A lot of the determinedness I have (for running, for teaching, for being successful in life) I learned from my mother.  Don’t have the circle driveway you’ve always wanted?  That’s ok, you can hand dig it yourself and puzzle out river stone piece by piece until it’s filled.  Oh and did you want a deck too?  How about a multi-tiered deck complete with a Jacuzzi and a 2 story covered gazebo?  It can be done and you can do it.  I may not have absorbed my mother’s penchant for home construction over the years, but I certainly translated this “you can do it” attitude into many other aspects of my life.  In fact, as I push through tough runs, it is the “you can do it” voice that I look for to get me through it.  I wonder, would that voice have been strong enough to get me through 2 marathons if I hadn’t watched my mother listen to that voice in her own challenges?

And so today, I look down at my hands and think to myself, I hope that one day my hands will have as many stories to tell as my mom’s.  Mom, you may be on the opposite coast, and we may not talk as often as we should, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t with me here every day in everything I do.

Happy Mama’s Day!!

Love you ma!

Life with Lucy: Love smoosh

Stop smooshing my face, Mom!

It makes me sleepy!

P.S. Lucy also says that if you like reading the blog, you should do 2 things:

            1) Like the facebook page

            2) Follow us on twitter @doggedlyrunning

       Thanks!

Intervals: they do a body good

Today was an up and down kind of day.  I started off with a staff meeting at 7:45 this morning, where we discussed time frames for setting up class configurations for next year's classrooms.  This means it's the time of year where we begin making plans for the upcoming year.  I find this point in time to be decidedly difficult.  I still have 6 full weeks with my current first graders and we are far from finished with the year.  However, mentally I'm supposed to start thinking about next year.  It's understandable--we need to plan ahead, and we need to do that planning before the school year is over.  But in my mind, the minute I start thinking about next year, I want to stop thinking about this year.  I can't let my body do that though, because it will only make this last month and a half all the more difficult than it already is.  And my current class of first graders deserves all of me, even in the last 6 weeks of the year.

And to add insult to injury, it's standardized testing time.  And oh how I detest federally mandated high stakes tests that determine how successful students are as learners, teachers are as teachers, and schools are as institutions of proper instruction.  My students, as first graders, do not have to take these tests--they have the luxury of waiting 2 more years until they are 8 years old to begin taking high stakes, high anxiety, uber important tests.  But this does not mean they are unaffected by the tests.  In elementary school, with the many varied needs of the test-takers, its an "all hands on deck" approach to finding proctors to give the tests.  This means that all out-of-classroom support staff (English Language Learner teachers, Special Education teachers, Intervention Specialists, para-educators, and even the Speech/Language teacher at times) must discontinue support for needy students for THREE weeks.

Let's paint a picture: students who struggle with academics, social skills, and/or language acquisition do not get the support they are used to.  Many students are pulled 30 minutes or more a day from my classroom to receive their supports.  Some students are pulled up to 2 hours a day for extra help.  So these students, who have come to rely on this time outside a classroom full of noisy children where they struggle to keep up are now left floundering all day.  And as I try my hardest to differentiate lessons even more than usual and provide extra support to these children in the classroom, my average and high functioning children feel left in the dust.

But the intention of this post was not to rant and rave about my hatred for high stakes testing of elementary students.  Let's just say that in the classroom, frustration in running high, tempers are quick to ignite, and 1st graders who aren't truly cognizant of their discomforts struggle to understand why everything is so different.

But then things happen that remind me of why I struggle through all of this.  Because they are children, and they are awesome.  Upon coming in from a recess filled with sunshine and real heat, one little girl curiously asks me, "Ms. Kaplan, do you sweat?"  And as I smile and begin to explain to her in a teacherly way that yes, in fact, I do, another little gentleman looks at her and says in a much more succinct and intelligent sounding manner, "Umm, she ran a MARATHON."  I watched the expression on the inquisitive girl's face as she strained her neural nerves to make a connection between running a marathon and sweat.  And I laughed somewhere deep inside.

And then, on this beautiful summery day, I let the kids go outside to write their poetry and sat back to soak in the sight of 25 little first graders sprawled out with clipboards on the grass, excitedly writing poems about the crows on the soccer field, the fly that landed on a pencil, the butterfly that flew by, "white puffy things" floating in the air.  And the birds flying "smoothly" in the sky.  And the tall giant trees ("don't try to eat me!").  Oh and the grass that looks like it's moving my itself.  And the bug ("there's a bug!!") on the path.  The whole world is just so exciting.

After all this excitement, I came home with enough time to walk Lucy for about 45 minutes and then head to my Team in Training practice, which is what I had fully intended to write about when I started this post (I apologize for bird-walking into standardized testing and poetic children).  I had a tough, but great run with my team.  Even though technically I am supposed to already be in taper for my marathon, I decided that I wanted to squeeze in just one more interval run.

I also remembered to set my watch so I could manually mark the laps of my intervals.  This way I know exactly how fast I was able to push it for each interval.  Today we decided on the same interval pattern we used last week: 1 min, 3 mins, 3 mins, 5 mins, 3 mins, 1 min.  During each of these intervals, the goal is to push yourself harder than you typically do for a training run.  In between intervals, the idea is to slow the pace back down for 1 minute of recovery.  Here's what that looks like in laps:

Laps 1 and 13 were warm up and cool down.  Even numbered laps were my intervals, odd numbered laps were my 1 minute recovery.  All of this added up to 4.5 miles of running in about 38 minutes.  Ideally, each interval should get faster than the one before, but I started a little too fast.  However, I was still able to give my all in the last minute long interval (lap 12) where I clocked a 6:37 average pace.  It was only a minute, but I've never clocked that speed before.  Seeing it there on the screen is quite satisfying.  And by the end of this run, all the pent up frustration, worry, and anxiety that built up during my day disappeared like a "white puffy thing" dissipating into the sky.

Having awkwardly tall, long lanky legs comes in handy for speed training.  When it's time to go fast, I extended my stride, pick up the pace, and kick up my heels (not the way you kick up your heels on the couch...quite the opposite).  I actually enjoy speed training most of the time...unlike hills which I just pretend to enjoy most of the time because I know they are so good for me.  Most of my running buddies are the opposite with these kinds of runs.  But my long legs don't take me up the hills any easier--in fact, I just have more weight to drag up that hill.

But now (unless I get antsy next week and do intervals again), I am officially in taper.  Mentally, this is one of the most difficult parts of training for me.  But let's save that discussion for when I'm deep in and more anxious.  It'll be way more entertaining that way.  For now, I'm ready for this roller coaster ride of a day to come to a close.  And so is Lucy.

Her hind legs are kicking as she runs through
her dreams.  I think I'll go try to do the same.
Goodnight!

I am a weekend warrior

If weekends can be measured in water bottles, here's how mine went:

Very impressive, don't you think?  It takes a
long time to hand wash all those suckers
(haha, more fun puns).

What a difference a week can make.  This time last Sunday, the sky was grey, my mood was grey, and I was spent.  But today, with even more mileage added to my weekend than last, I feel awesome.  The worst part about my weekend: I think I may have killed my right 2nd toenail for the 47th time.  And that's totally ok, I've obviously survived without it before (trick for first time toenail murderers: you can still paint the toe without the nail after it departs from your toe!  This may be suspect for guys though...).  What made this weekend so awesome and amazing?  Let's recap the past 36 hours:

Saturday Morning:
I woke up at 6:45, not quite sure how I felt about it being time for my longest training run of the marathon season.  For the 3 hour run, I didn't know what my mileage would be, but I was hoping for something between 18 and 19 miles (note: my LLS Team in Training team trains based on time instead of mileage, this way all of the many people who attend practices with their wide variety of paces finish at the same time--and slower paced people don't inevitably have to run for a WAY longer time than faster paced people), and I was unsure about how my body was feeling.  My sour mood was vastly improved after Monday's rest and Tuesday's interval run with Team.  I had pushed hard through the intervals, finished strong, and felt great.  According to our coaching schedule, this was supposed to be a tempo run, but I like intervals way better so I did steady increasing and then decreasing intervals instead.  I know...I'm a rebel.  Watch out for your children.

Starting off Saturday morning's run, I didn't know how I'd feel, but I had high hopes.  In the past, my longest training runs of the season have felt great.  And I am happy to report that I did not break that streak with this weekend's run.  My running buddy Erica and I started off trying to keep at a steady 9:30 pace.  We knew we had a long way to go and wanted to stay strong throughout.  This is one of the most challenging parts of long runs for us.  We tend to want to speed up, go fast, and get through it.  We're getting better at constantly checking our watches and keeping each other in pace.  Here's how the run turned out:

Obviously, we failed at keeping a 9:30 pace, but by setting our sights at 9:30, we at least kept ourselves above 9 for most of the run.  Mile 4 and Mile 15 happened due to a TNT water stop being manned by one of our favorite former Teammates.  We had to stop and chat (and refuel) for just a bit.  Mile 17 was a not-so-obliging stop light.  However, the sub-9 minute pace the last few miles shows that we conserved our energy well and didn't overtire ourselves at the beginning.

Erica and I are pretty awesome at being running buddies.  First and most importantly because we are both comfortably the same pace.  And at that pace, I think we push each other to go a little bit faster or work a little bit harder than we may have by ourselves.  We also keep each other distracted through an entire run (even a 3 hour one) with awesomely important conversations about things like boys, work, cycling, running, and wine.  We are both generally positive people, but allow each other to be negative nancys when the time calls for it.  And when it comes to getting through a tough or long run, it's extremely important to have a good, solid running buddy there at your side.

Lately, as runs have gotten longer and we have more time to kill, Erica and I have also gotten really good at taking mid-run pictures.  We've learned that pictures attempted from front view while simultaneously running never end up super attractive.

Yet I still post them on the internet.

We've also learned that in order to get a good "running" picture, you have to take multiple shots at a time.  This is due to the unfortunate effects of gravity on your body at different points in your stride.  Let me elaborate.  Here is tall, skinny Tessa at the top of her stride:

TNT gives us "bibs" to wear for our longest
run to acknowledge the hard work that goes
into it.  Just in case you were wondering.

And here is medium-sized Tessa mid-stride:

These pictures have a weird quality to them
because it was just too awesomely sunny
yesterday (or it could be the fact that the
picture lens was covered in sweat from being in
my back pocket throughout the run, maybe)

And finally, short, squat Tessa and the bottom of her stride:

I promise I am running here even though it
looks like I'm just doing a lopsided squat.

And to prove my point even further, here is another series that demonstrates the phenomenon from the back side.

Yay, super stretched skinny Tessa!

Medium-sized, normal Tessa.

Boo, wide and boxy Tessa :(

Aren't you glad I can teach you these lessons for when you decide to start taking mid-run pictures?  Now you know the trick: look for the top of the stride for the skinniest, most internet friendly sharable version of yourself.  You're welcome.

After much conversation, picture taking, and running, we made it to the end where we were greeted by our finish line TNT cheering squad and awarded "medals" for completing the longest run of the season.

More picture taking advice: do not put your
hands awkwardly on your hips because you
don't know what do to with them in a picture
by yourself.

After this run, I listened to my legs, and they told me "we feel great, thanks for not abusing us today!"  Which is pretty amazing after a 19.26 mile run--yep that 18-19 miles I was aiming for, blew them out of the water.  And so, after a very tasty BBQ put on by some fellow teammates, I went home feeling pretty great.

Saturday Afternoon:

I got home from the run and took the obligatory ice bath.  When I describe my legs as feeling "great" after a run, this doesn't mean they aren't hurting.  I can't expect them to be 100% after carrying me through 19+ ground pounding miles.  The ice bath is still highly necessary, especially if I wanted to survived another 40 miles on the bike on Sunday.

You might be sick of ice bath pictures after
last week's post, but I was quite proud of
the symmetry I created in this image. So
professional.

After that, I took Lucy for a 1+ hour walk and observed some very pretty neighborhood flowers.

Look at the color in this picture.  It's because
I'm an awesome photographer, and not
because the owner of this home is really
good at planting colorful plants.

I also found a house that seems to have sunken into the ground.

That may or may not be my headphones
cable in the bottom left of the picture.  I am
still an awesome photographer.

When we got home, Lucy and I took a 20 minute power nap together.

Yes, she is completely restricting all leg
movement.  She's just too cute to move.

Saturday Night:

After fighting the desire to stay snuggled on the couch with Lucy, I decided to be social and grab some drinks at the Boxcar with some old Magnolia friends that it's been embarrassingly too long since I've seen.  It was Cinco de Mayo after all and there were some Coronas that needed imbibing.  But I was still a good girl and was home in bed by midnight, ready to rest up for the next day's adventure.

Sunday Morning into Afternoon:

Because everyone should have at least one day a week to sleep in, my fellow cyclists and I (ha, weird, am I officially a cyclist yet?  Not sure I've put in ample time on the bike yet...) have graced ourselves with an 11:00 Sunday start time.  So I woke up around 9 (after waking up at 5, and then 6:30, and then 7, and then 8:00, all the while forcing myself to go back to sleep), leisurely ate some breakfast, drank some coffee, and got ready for the ride.  Lucy decided she wanted to break my heart just a little this morning as I got dressed and put on shoes for the ride by crying just a little, and looking longingly up at the wall where her leash hangs.  I gave her many hugs, pets, and treats and promised a long walk when I got back, which I sincerely hoped I could follow through on.  It was extremely hard to close the door on those pathetically disappointed puppy dog eyes.

Funnily enough, this week we to decided to meet and ride from the same spot as our Saturday run.  However, it took the same amount of time to ride about twice as far on the bike.  It was a beautiful, sunny, warm (for Seattle standards) day--a great day for a nice, flat bike ride up to Red Hook Brewery.  We took the Burke-Gilman trail 20 miles up to the brewery, and I was super happy that I had put some lengthy time on the bike before this ride.  Except a brand new 2 mile section, the Burke-Gilman is really bumpy.  This doesn't really bode well for anything regularly making contact with the seat.  But now that I have a little more "seat time" under my belt and I've developed those oh-so-necessary core muscle to lift myself off the seat when necessary, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

We of course couldn't ride to Red Hook Brewery without stopping for a meal and a beer.

The awesome thing about cycling is that you can stop and
eat (real food!) in the middle and then hop back on the bike
for more.  This absolutely cannot happen when running.

We were not the only ones to have this
awesome idea (this was just one of 2 sets
of overloaded bike racks at the brewery).

We then rode the 20 miles back to Gasworks Park where we had started and took the obligatory, "we did it!" picture to post on Facebook.

Yay, 40 miler #2!

And again, my legs said "we feel awesome!  Thanks for not abusing us again!  No ice bath necessary today, thank you."  Which was very nice of them to say because ice baths really aren't that fun.  In fact, as I finished up the ride, my legs were thinking to themselves "we could have gone just a little farther today if you wanted us to," which was also great because they've never thought that at the end of a bike ride before.  

Sunday Evening:

I was excited to come home from the ride on happy legs so I could give Lucy the long walk I promised her earlier in the day.  We walked for an hour, and now she's sleeping curled up at my side.

And now, I sit happily writing and eating cheese (damn you Fred Meyer for selling mini cut blocks of delicious craft cheeses perfect for single people like me).  And as I relive the weekend, I keep thinking about how different I am feeling from this exact time one week ago.  Last weekend, I entered the week feeling grey and disappointed in myself, but today, I leave my weekend behind feeling pink and ready to go (I think pink is the color for happy--I tried other colors, but yellow makes me sound jaundiced and orange just sounds weird).  

I leave this weekend behind me with 2 new firsts under my belt.  My longest distance training run ever and my first bike ride where I felt pretty good at the end.  Not too shabby for the last 36 hours.  Like I said on Monday, sometimes bad days and bad runs and bad bike rides happen.  But it doesn't mean the world has given up on me.  It's just preparing me so that I can truly enjoy the really great things that lie ahead.  So smile a pink smile for yourself today, because the greyer things may get, the pinker they'll be when your time arrives.