It's All About GO GO GO GO GO

The past two days I've been home and awake for maybe a whopping 3 hours each day. I guess this makes up for my world class laziness on Saturday wherein I did my brick workout (ever run 15 miles after riding your bike for awhile? After about mile 12 it gets a little less fun. Especially in the middle of a warm day. I've never thought about popsicles so much). Saturday after the brick I was a waste of space for no particular reason. Hate days like that. I just wanted to go to bed so I could get a re-do on a new day and maybe be a little more productive next go-around.

Sunday was much, much better. I got up at 6ish, which was terribly confusing for those first seconds I was awake - was I getting up for work? Why is the alarm going off? It took a minute but then I remembered I was getting up to ride my bike. The day's bike workout was going to serve double-duty: 1) the weekend bike workout (captain obvious here); and 2) a ride out to my Aunt Amy's place in Loudon County to watch her kiddos, thus avoiding any and all traffic on 66. Win-win-win all-around. I rode out on the W&OD trail, taking it out past Leesburg before doubling back to meet my aunt near our Rt 50 meeting spot. The first ten miles I have no idea where my legs were, but they were replaced by bricks and I was moving a whopping 14mph average speed even though I felt like my effort level should've warranted at least another mile or two per hour. Things picked up though after that and I ended the ride on a high note. Also, there weren't a ton of people out on the trail, starting early has its perks. Then it was marathon babysitting duty of my adorable little cousins. Last time I babysat them, much time was spent tearfully looking out the front window until mom and dad came home. Traumatic enough experience that the Lilly tells me to go away whenever I come visit, automatically assuming I'm there to babysit and mom and dad are leaving. Needless to say, I was a little concerned this babysitting stint would be a bit of a setback in our relationship. BUT - popsicles saved the day, I distracted them with popsicles as mom and dad walked out the door and it was like magic. We ended up having a great time, going to the playground, taking a wagon ride, playing in their playroom. They napped hard (I was tempted to nap too - kids are tiring - but there was some serious kitchen pantry raiding that needed to happen - goldfish, cereal, all sorts of good stuff we don't keep at our house because we have no self control). Sarah stopped by for a visit and Mr. Sweetie came out too; the cutest part of the night was when he and Xander were intently watching golf (Xander is 2) and Mr. Sweetie brought in his clubs from the car and was showing Xander how to putt the ball. Xander's words - ohhh, shouldn't we be doing this outside? Ever the stickler for rules, ha! I went promptly to bed as soon as I got home - the kiddos were always on the go!

Today was early swim practice - made it just late enough that I missed a few of the 50s from the first set. I ended up leading my lane for most of practice - I'm at that awkward in-between lane speed where I'm kind of a sandbagger for staying in my current lane (but everyone in the lane is super nice and it was the lane I was in last summer - I am comfortable there); but I could probably just barely hang on to the feet in front of me if I moved up a lane. I'm always watching that lane as I'm going up and down to pool, comparing my speed to the people over there - some quick swimmers over in that lane. I might give it a go later this week. We'll see. I made it to the office by 7:30, had enough time to do my 30 minutes of strength training in the office gym, and was at my desk before 8:30am, which allowed me to leave early enough so I wasn't speed-racing my way to Tri360 for the Monday night run. I got there early enough to buy new running shoes. I'd bought a pair of hot pink KSwiss shoes back in February. They were the lightest shoes I've ever run in and I think they served me well, but I could feel it in my shins and knees that I had run those hot pink shoes into the ground and it was time to invest in some new ones. I went with a brand that I just recently heard about and that Tri360 has started carrying - "On" running shoes. I took them out for an inaugural spin on the group run tonight and overall I thought they were really comfortable. I'm looking forward to continuing my Ironman training in them.

This coming weekend I am so, so, SO excited about riding the Diabolical Double at the Garrett County Gran Fondo with some of my favorite people! Many of my Ignite teammates will be there, and so will some other friends from Snapple and Team Z. This was one of my favorite training weekends from last year and I always look forward to a chance to visit Deep Creek Lake in western Maryland where it is at least 10 degrees cooler than DC. Also, there is a super yummy ice cream shop right on the lake. I think Sarah, Mindy, Dawn and I will be stopping there at least once, if not twice, this weekend! Will bike for ice cream. And fig pizza. I cannot contain my excitement, squeeeeee!