Could It Get Any Better....

On Wednesday I shared with you how great my week was going. I was very confident that the week would finish well and it did!

Thursday was a good day with another 30 minute session of picking up heavy objects and putting them back down. I think most call this strength training. I even managed to pack before I went to bed.



It's so much easier to pack when I'm 'just' running.

Friday morning, after successfully setting my alarm for AM not PM, I woke up at 4:15 to run a 10K (6.2 miles) with the Running Husband. At 4:30 or so I got a text from him that he was not going to make it. Gotta love a man who wakes up at an unseemly hour only to realize, he's not going to be able to run. I hope he got some more sleep.

Me....I'm up to run! Coach assigned a 10K asking me to see how close to 55min I could get. My race PR for a 10k is 55:03. Mind you, I've never really raced any 10ks, I just usually run them because something bigger is on the horizon, but still....Original plan with RH was to run a 1 mile warm up and then reset watches and go from there. I was left to my own thoughts and started running my warm-up. My warm-up mile ended up being 9:08. I was sure I could drop that to an 8:51 avg (what I needed for a 55min 10k) so I just kept going. End result....BOOM! 54:08.

For the first time, I had faith I could pull this off.

I didn't get to leave work as early as I would have liked to on Friday, so my 2.5-3 hour trip to Augusta took about 4. It was miserable! Luckily, the drive out was the only miserable part of the trip.

Saturday morning I was swimming in the Inaugural Gatorfest Augusta swim. It was 1.2 miles down the river. It was a small group of 32 doing this distance (there was also a 5k option). I finished 7/32 and first in age group. I can only imagine what the second place person was thinking as I only beat her by 3 seconds! Even better though, I got to reconnect with Millie who I hadn't seen in about a year and meet Jeff for the first time.

Me, Millie, and Jeff

I also got to meet Lisa and her friends who would prove to be heroes later on in the day.

Lisa, me

After waiting around for the awards ceremony, Millie and I made a mad dash to the hotel to get our bikes and then came back to ride the Half Ironman Augusta bike route.

It was noon by the time we rolled out and you could feel the heat coming off the road. Discussion was started about only going out 16 and back for a total of 32. At the turn around point, one of our tour guides, Mike, asked who wanted to go on. Everyone said they were happy to turn back. I have never ridden the course and really wanted to see it, so I said I'd like to keep going.



Me and Mike only a few miles away from the end.

It ended up being 4 of us in total finishing the loop. We paired off and regrouped along the way. Just a few miles out, Mike got a bad leg cramp. He thought he could push through, but on my urging, we stopped so he could get off his bike and stretch. A minute later an SUV with 3 bikes on the back pulled over. We figured it was a random cyclist (or three) who were checking to make sure we were okay as it wasn't really a great place to take a break. It was the TRI MOMS to the rescue. One of them had salt tablets and Mike took one and kept the extras for later. More proof that moms are always prepared: they drove to my car and lent me an extra towel so I could jump in the river after our ride.

Some of the most awesome Tri moms I've met! Hope to train some with them!

There is truly no better way to recover from a very hot ride then an ice bath...and since I can't stand an ice bath, an icy river will have to do!

Dinner with new friends at Nacho Mama's....it was everything I'd hoped it would be.... a milkshake from Farmhaus.... and then I was on the ride home.

We earned these!

Thanks again to Marci and the Riverkeepers for a great event and to the folks from TriAugusta who are always amazing hosts!

Today, I may be taking my assignment of rest day a little too literal. I'll get out of bed eventually, just not yet!