3 Weeks and Counting!

This came in the mail today.  I am getting so excited!!!!!  I can't wait!

I had a killer 20 miler on Saturday.  There was a bit of drama around the scheduling of this, trying to coordinate my schedule with Ryan's fluctuating schedule, but it all worked out for me to run with Kim's church group.  It is a huge group, and the same group I ran with 2 weeks ago.  The course was a bit different, since it was set up for everyone to do 20, not 18.  We started with the loop to Iroquios park, which contains the hills, and then finished the second half by running through Eastern Parkway, (which went past one of my church buildings), and then into downtown, to the Yum Center, and then back to the start, near Papa John's Cardinal Stadium.  I ran the first half with Kim, and we started off pretty fast.  One of her friends out doing support for the run was pacing us on her bike and asked if we really intended to do 8:36 this early on.  Yup, I guess we were!  We slowed down a bit in Iroquois, because it is hilly.  Kim and I parted ways at mile 9, when she met up with a different friend for a slower second half.  I couldn't believe it, I but I held on, and finished up with a time of 2:49:58, which was an 8:30 pace.  This was a great confidence booster, especially because it had some nice hills in it.  I was starting to worry if I had trained enough "downhill", but when I took a look at the course profile today, I am feeling good!  My quads are a bit sore today still, but that is probably a good thing!

I am so happy that I have finished with the bulk of the training, and now it is just taper time.  In fact, I got really emotional on Saturday as I drove home.  I finished all three of my 20 milers without any major incidents.  I have done all the work!  Wow!  It is really happening.  I only had 2 training runs out of the entire cycle that could be categorized as "difficult".  The first was towards the beginning of my training, and I was still not focused in on my nutrition, and had a horrible stomach cramp.  The second was a 17 miler where it rained THE WHOLE TIME, and it was pretty chilly.  Other than that, it has been smooth sailing.  I also did the "hard" parts of my 20 milers by myself, which I feel like that is important, since Boston will be pretty much on my own.  I know several people headed out there, but the reality of me seeing them on the course is very slim.  I am not in the same corral as anyone I know well.  I like to run my own race when I am running anyway, so it was nice to train my own way, but still have some company for parts.  It was the best of both worlds!

Also, totally unrelated to running, but I got outside to ride my bike all by myself too last week!  It was  great.  We had a wonderful day last Wednesday, and I finally cashed in some of my babysitting hours so that I could ride, not with Ryan, but at the same time as him anyway.  He had driven me on the roads that he rides over the weekend, so I pumped up my tires, and rolled out!  WOW, it was fabulous to be outside.  I rode 16 miles, at about 17mph, and it was so great to ride from my house!  I had spent all this time missing Island Lake in Michigan, because I loved how you didn't have to deal with intersections or traffic.  HELLO Oldham County is the SAME WAY!  I rode out 7.5 miles, and only had the stop sign at the end of the neighborhood and then the intersection where I turned onto 1694 from my house.  Awesome!  It was HILLY!  I had a blast, and can't wait to get outside a lot more after Boston.  Unfortunately, the very next day or so, Oldham Co published some draft of an ordinance to try to limit cycling on "their" roads, talking about how people just come to OC for the roads.  Well, I live in OC, and I am going to ride on MY roads.  They want groups of over 50 to register with the county and pay for police support at intersections so that residents are not "inconvenienced" as the article stated.  I am not sure what to think of it.  Honestly, a group of 50 is pretty huge, and probably ought to be considered some sort of "official" ride (especially if they are charging to ride with them, as one group does), but I think they are making a bigger problem out of it than they should, and the language in the article was written as if cyclists were the enemy.  With the Ironman course going through the county, I don't think the bike traffic is going to let up anytime soon.  All it has done so far is make the cyclists want to organize themselves into groups of 49 :)