Brick, Race for the Cure, and REST!

Hello, Bloggies! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! I had to take yesterday off to catch up on rest from mine!

My Saturday morning began at 3:30 am. My alarm was actually set for 4am, but a lovely text message woke me up at 3:30 instead...sigh. Anyway, I was loaded up and out the door before 5am. I had about a 45 minute drive down south for practice and needed to get my transition area set up prior to practice.

We started out with a half mile swim. It was interesting because we were swimming at Longview Lake and it's really shallow there. There were times when we were about 100 yards out and our hands or knees would hit the bottom, LOL. So we would get up and walk out a few more yards and then start swimming again. It was funny...looked like we were walking on water in the middle of the lake, LOL.

Next up was a 23.5 mile bike (our schedule only said 15 miles for Saturday...I love how the coaches sneak in extra miles!). It was a beautiful day for a bike ride. It was in the 80's with a nice breeze and only 1 killer hill (that we had to ride twice).

Last, but not least, was a 3 mile run. The run sucked the life out of me. My time was horrible, but it was so hot and humid and I was exhausted from the swim and bike. I sure hope I don't feel that zapped during the run on race day!

Anyway, overall, it was a good practice. Very close to the distances I'll be doing at Nations...minus another half mile swim and 3 mile run. I finally feel like I can actually DO it now, though. It may not be pretty and my time may suck, but I know that it can be done.

Sunday morning I joined the record-breaking 30,000 people for the Race for the Cure of Greater Kansas City. It was a HOT one, folks! Soooo hot, in fact, that I witnessed the heartbreaking event of an older man having a stroke. My stomach is still in knots over it...haven't been able to get it out of my mind ever since... :(

Rylie did the race too, but she mostly walked it with one of my friends. I PRed (according to my Garmin), but my chip time was longer.... probably because I stopped my Garmin at the 5K point, which was a good 3 blocks before the finish line. Oh well. My time wasn't spectacular and my splits were all over the place, lol. My first mile was 12:06. I like to blame the congestion of the crowds on that one, lol. My second mile was 10:02...and I even walked a huge hill at the end of it, so I must have been running pretty fast (well, fast for me). The last mile was 11:16. My Garmin says I finished in 34:34. Yeah, it's slow....but it was the first 5K I ran without Rylie, so it was faster by default, LOL. I also drank quite a bit of wine Saturday night, so I wasn't expecting much. I think I can only improve from here. ;)

Yesterday I took the day off to rest. I had worked out for 7 consecutive days and I think my body just really needed a rest. The weekend took it out of me.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Saturday, August 8, 2009: 1/2 mi swim, 23.5 mi bike, 3 mi run

Sunday, August 9, 2009: 3.1 mi run