All it takes is all you've got

Went to the gym and ran 6 miles on the treadmill.  Just locked in at 8 min. mile pace and took it nice and easy.  I wa going to lift weights too but I only did a few lifts before the child care worker, Adel paged me because Ali was exhausted and ready for a nap.  

Going to pick up my race packet for the half marathon today so I don't have to drive up there the night before or early the morning of.   After that I'm driving to Idaho Springs to pick up Aaron and Eric after they finish their climb to the top of Mt. Evans and cruise back down to Idaho Spgs.

Three random loops around countryside.  Saw my friend Lindsey and ran with her for a few miles.  It was nice to chat for a bit.  Maybe I'll do a fartlek tomorrow and then just mileage until Saturday when I race!!  I am SO excited to race!! 

Warmed up for 20 minutes 

Did a 5X4X3X2X1 Fartlek with 1 min. recoveries.

Cooled down

Total: 9 miles at 7:04 ave. 

Feeling a little tired.  Better go to bed earlier and get really rested for the weekend. 

Recovery run around Standley Lake.  Felt pretty tight the first couple of miles, but then I loosened up.  Some old man who could hardly understand or speak English was staring at this sign posted by one of the trails leading to Standley Lake.  He waved me to stop and proceeded to attempt to aske me if he could fish in the Lake.  "No Fishing?"  "I fish in the lake?"  "Permit?"  I told him I didn't know the rules as I had never fished in the lake, but as I started to read the top couple of lines of the multi-paragraph sign, I saw that he needed to get a permit, so I just told him to go to the main lake entrance and get a permit.  He had a blank stare and replied "No Fishing?"  I just pointed to the Lake entrance and told him to talk to the park rangers.  He probably didn't even have a State fishing liscence either.  Oh well, I hope he found a park ranger to explain things...preferrably one who speaks Russian. 

Yesterday I did pilates reformer from 12-1 p.m., took a nap from 2-3 p.m. and went to the gym to lift weights from 4-5 p.m.  The in between hours consisted of lunch, playing with kids, cleaning, ect.

And now we're off to the Butterfly Pavillion!  The kids love that place. 

Easy 8 miles in 7:30 pace.  

Went to the gym with Lindsey to lift weights and then went to the park with the kids afterwards with a few other Moms.  Now my kids are hungry and tired, so we're eating and resting.  I'm supposed to go to my pilates class at 11:45 but I'm not sure I want to wake my girls up for it...I just did too much with them this morning, I think.  Better go to the gym on non-pilates days from now on. 

Easy 7 on the Big Dry Creek trail.  Saw a coyote...haven't seen one in a while.  7:30 ave.

Decided to put the cereal boxes in an upper cabinet this morning after sweeping up Cheerios four too many times in the past month.  Thanks, but no thanks, Ali.  Gotta love 1 year olds. 

WARNING: LONG POST 

What a beautiful and fun course!  It was a point to point course, so I parked in Idaho Springs, found the bus pick-up and waited in line for 30 minutes to catch the second to last bus to Georgetown.  Arrived at the starting line 12 minutes before race start (would have preferred a little earlier, but I didn't arrive early enough to avoid the long bus line).  There were hundreds of people in line for the potties so I jogged down the road a bit to find a tree to squat by.  This guy had the same thought and started creeping into my secluded area as I was peeing, but then he saw me and politely turned around and waited his turn.  Haha...long lines for the porta johns and even lines for the trees.  :)

The race started and I chatted with another girl named Bean who I met last fall (cool name, eh?) She said she was shooting for 1:25 so we ran together for the first mile or so.  There was another girl who went out ahead of us in what must have been sub 6:00 pace, but didn't kill myself to keep up with her at first.

Mile 1 - 6:11 pretty flat, actually a little bit of ascent according to the Garmin.

Mile 2 - 6:22 rolling, one short steep climb and some descent, Bean slipped right behind me into her own groove and I and kept my own comfortable pace with my eye on the leader who was a good 25 seconds ahead. Had some water at the aid station.

Mile 3 -  6:01 gradual descent on a dirt road

Mile 4 - 6:01 more gradual descent on the dirt road that turned into a narrower path.  Popped my first gu right before the water station and chased it with a cup of water.  Getting into a nice groove, noticed I was creeping up on the leader.

Mile 5 - 6:13 caught the leader, her name is Kara.  Ran with her on the dirt trail, flat.

Mile 6 - 5:54 descending a little more, Kara and I are pacing together. Took water again at the station.

Mile 7 - 5:54 very gradual descending, Kara starts to run a half step behind me

Mile 8 - 6:07 descending with one short somewhat steep climb where Kara seemed to slip off. Popped another gu right before the water station and chased it down, or almost breathed it down with what water I could get...for some reason they stopped the paper cups and started giving plastic cups at this point, which are much harder to sip from, so most of it ended up on my face and shirt, but at least I got enough water to tame the sticky gu mouth until mile 10 when I could fully wash it down.

Mile 9 - 5:58 dropped off onto the road and it was nice to have a smoothe surface

Mile 10 - 5:50 loving this road and the descent that is coming with it.  Had some gatorade at the pit stop...had to slow down more so I could actually gulp it down, but it was worth it.

Mile 11 - 5:46 more descending on the road while trying to catch some men.

Mile 12 - 5:51 this smoothe surface is really helping my splits and the descent is nice too (about 100 feet of descent per mile).  Had another sip of gatorade at the pit.

Mile 13 - 5:44 getting excited to finish and starting to feel the energy of the crowd near the finish line

Mile .2 - unsure about my pace here..probaby 5:40 pace or so.  Ran across the finish mat and for some reason my time chip did not register, so a few seconds later as I was watching for my family the finish line attendant ran up to me quickly to say I needed to run across the mat again...what?  So I ran back and finished for the second time by stepping on the mat more adamantly.  Chip time was 1:19:07, but when I looked up at the finish clock as I came across the first time, it said 1:18:47.  Whatever.  At least no women came in between my two finishes.  Just a couple of men who can feel good about the fact that they didn't get "chicked" (at least on paper).  

Overall I felt GREAT and had a wonderful time!  I was really glad I took liquid at every pit stop and the two gu's helped me feel strong to the finish. The trophy is an aluminum gold-mining pan with some tinfoil looking runner scupted and glued to the pan.  Woo. I got what I went for...a great race and confidence builder.  And it was fun to see my kids afterwards...they were so excited.  My husband is such a stud for bringing them up and supporting me.

Garmin says total ascent: 1,072 ft, total descent: 1,974 ft, average pace: 5:59 (that is when I stopped my watch at 1:19:16 after all the double finish fiasco.  If my real time was actually 1:18:47 like I saw when I crossed the line, my average pace would have been closer to 5:58.  Wahoo!

My sister and her family are in town so I took her on the single track trail around Standley Lake, she rode my Mt. Bike while I ran.  My legs still felt pretty dead from Saturday.  Averaged 7:47 pace.  

My sister rode my Mt. Bike while I ran again.  I took her up on the dog park trail.  It is somewhat hilly and uneven.  We had to hoist the bike and step over the Emergency Do Not Cross tape to get to the trail.  The sign said that the prarie dogs and rabbits are suffering from the Plague, so the "authorities" don't want people walking their dogs up there so as to not spread the plague to the dog population, I assume.  I didn't see any prarie dogs or rabbits the whole run.  Maybe they all died.  I did see one field mouse.  He must have had one of those itty bitty mouse sized pandemic masks.  Lucky him!  And we also saw one coyote.  He looked hungry.

10.5 miles, 7:43 average.

Legs feel a little better, maybe I'll try to do some pick-ups tomorrow. 

Warmed up for 20 minutes and then did a 5X4X3X2X1 fartlek

As I was doing the workout I realized that I did an accelerated fartlek last week with only 1 minute rest in between each pick-up.  I guess it has been too long since I've don regular Farteks.  Last weeks was more like a tempo.  Today I did equal rest in between each pick up and was able to push it pretty hard.  

My Mom comes into town today just as my sister and her family leave.  I asked my Mom to support me on a 20 miler tomorrow and she was like, "I don't know if I can ride my bike 20 miles!?!  That will be the longest I have ever gone!!"  I am confident she can do it though.  She is fit and thin and has been biking a couple of times a week ever since we bought her a new bike for Christmas.  Besides, what better way to celebrate turning 60 than to ride your bike further than you have ever ridden?!!  That is actually the reason for her visit, she just turned 60 last week, I am turning 28 on Friday, and my Mom's sister who lives in Littleton turns 65 on Sunday.  So we're all going out to dinner together Thursday night to celebrate our birthdays. 

I also decided today based on how good (recovered) I feel that I'm going to do a 10K on Saturday.   It is a pretty easy, flat course starting and finishing at the City Park (on the same trail where I do a lot of my long runs).  The race is in conjuction with the Westminster City Fair.  Unfortunately Aaron will not be able to join me because he has the opportunity to be our friend, Eric's photography assistant at the Leadville 100 on Saturday.  Eric is an awesome photragher and got his biggest job ever as one of the only 3 photographers hired to cover the race and he needs Aaron to come help him identify cyclists that he is supposed to be capturing and carry gear and what not.  Lance Armstrong and a few other big names will be racing and I'm sure Aaron and Eric will have a blast rubbing shoulders with the elite.  SO I asked Mom if she could bring the kids over to watch the finish of MY race on Saturday and then we can stay and let the kids play in the bouncy houses and do any other fun fair activities.  

What a FUN week!! 

Ran 20 while my Mom biked next to me.  She carried the camel back with gu, granola bars, gatorade, ect.  I decided I actually like eating something with a little more sustenence on long runs when I stop to eat anyway.  I had this yummy fruit/nut bar with all sorts of good fat and protein along with the carbs and it stuck with me longer and tasted yummier than just eating a bunch of gu.  I did have one gu too.  And lots of water and gatorade.  

I mostly just listened to Mom chatter and gave my two cents where I could, but really enjoyed having the company.  Mom really enjoyed the long ride too.   We had nice cloud cover and I didn't even bother putting my sunglasses on.  Perfect weather!

7:10 ave. 

Took it easy today.  Just needed to shake out the ol' legs so I can race tomorrow.  Mom rode next to me again and when we got back we realized we had locked oursleves out since we had left out of the garage and not unlocked the front door.  I knocked a couple of times because usually Aaron and/or the kids are awake by 7:30 but the only one who came to the door was my 1 year old, Ali.  She was standing up peering through the glass on the side of door mumbling her baby talk "Yagodubidaboo! Mamabagabaloo!" in an effort to tell me that Dad and the other kids were still asleep.  I remembered that the back door was unlocked so we came in that way.  Apparently Aaron had let Ali out of her crib 45 minutes earlier and fallen back to sleep (in an effort to catch up from his 2 a.m. night the other night).  My three year old was awake too, just getting changed in her room.  These little ones pretty much take care of themselves, ya know.

Ran a small out and back trail race this morning, the Holy Cow 10K in conjuction with the Westminster City Fair. 

Ran from my house, 5 miles to city park to warm up and get a few extra miles.  7:25 ave.

Registered for the race and ate a gu and some water.  Did a couple strides and potty visits. 

Race start was a little disorganized.  The police officer who was leading the race on his bike was still talking to the guys he thought would be the leaders to tell him he was leading the race and ask if we had any questions.  Suddenly some guy over a megaphone says "Ready GO!" And we weren't even in start position rather 5 or 10 feet behind the line chatting and shaking out our legs.  We all went anyway and laughed about it.

Mile 1:  5:52  Pretty flat, no other woman really stayed with me at all, so I knew it would be a race to beat as many guys as I could.

Mile 2:   5:53  A few rollers, but overall pretty flat.  Ran around a few diferent guys as we were trying to get into our own grooves.

Mile 3: 5:51 Felt good, little downhill

Mile 4: 6:02  Took a sip of water at the turn-around.  Gradual uphill after the turn-around. Realized that there were only 4 guys ahead of me and the next woman behind was about a minute back.

Mile 5: 6:10 Headwind and a few rollers.  Caught another guy.

Mile 6: 6:03 Pretty flat, getting pretty tired.

Final .2:  5:50 pace, finished strong.

Garmin said average pace was 5:58 and total elevation change was around 700 up and down, so definitely not a flat course. 

Was pretty happy about the fact that only 3 guys beat me.  Obviously it wasn't a super competitvie race.  2nd place woman was a minute behind.  I got a trophy and a $100 gift certificate at Road Runner Sports!  Yeah!  New shoes!

Took the kids to the fair afterwards and they had a blast in the bouncy house and slide.  Good times! 

Easy 9 around Countryside.  Legs felt tired from last week still, so I needed the slow recovery run today.  Last week was the biggest week of my life, come to think of it.  I never ran over 55 miles in a week in college or after.  Having completed 60 miles two weeks ago 65 miles last week, I'm paving new territory here.  And I feel pretty good!  A little tired, but no severe aches or pains.  Thank goodness!  I think I'll go back down to 60 this week and see if I can hit 65 again next week before I start my taper for TOU.

Went to bed pretty early last night but Ali kept waking up and moaning in her bed.  She's been teething, I think.  So my sleep was pretty disrupted, but at least I was in bed for 8 hours.

I was going to try and do some intervals today but after a few miles my legs still didn't feel quite ready, so I decided to wait until tomorrow.  I just didn't want to try and push it hard before my legs are ready.  I think they appreciated more long slow miles.

10.5 miles on big dry creek trail 7:39 ave. 

2 mile warm up

Stretching and 4 strides 

10X800M at the track with 200M jog in between each

2:50, 2:51, 2:53, 2:52, 2:53, 2:51, 2:47, 2:51, 2:52, 2:44

The first 5 were actually the hardest because I was pretty daunted by the idea of doing 10.   Once I passed half way I started feeling better and just taking them one at a time.  I took my fuel belt with water and gatorade so I didn't die of thirst.

2 mile cool down 

Tired legs from yesterday.  It took me about 5 miles to finally loosen up a bit.  Thank goodness I have my pilates reformer class today.  Aaron is watching the kids tonight so I can go pick out some new training shoes with my gift certificate from the race last week.  Maybe I'll go get a massage while I'm out too. 

Aaron took our 5 year old, Abe with him to look at houses yesterday.  They looked at 23 houses, 5 of which are homes we already own that are in rehab mode.  The other 18 are bank owned houses that are going up for bid at the Denver County Auction this morning, so Aaron wanted to check them out to get a better idea of what he is willing to bid on them.  Abe came home and told me how fun it was to go to work with his Dad.  He told me how usually the lock boxes are on the front door handle, but sometimes they are hidden on a pipe on the side of the house and it is like a treasure hunt to find them.  And one time there was no lock box, so Aaron lifted him through a half-open window and he went in and climbed up on the couch and unlocked the safety lock to let Aaron in. Abe totally loved the private detective role he got to play...although it just occurred to me how unsafe that may have been.  I think I ought to have a talk with Aaron.  I guess it is pretty easy to tell which houses are vacant and which are not...but still....sending your 5 year old into a "vacant" house that may or may not have scavengers living in the basement?  Aaron did tell me that he made Abe stay in the car when he came upon an occupied property and had to talk to the tenants.  I'm glad Abe is learning all about how to become a Real-Estate Investor.  He is really good with numbers already and obviously has is Dad's entrepreneurial personality. (He likes to do things his own way, is very strong-willed, creative, and passionate.)   I think our college savings plan for him should be to help him buy his own rental property and teach him all the details of rehabbing it, renting or selling it and how to maxmize his cash flow.  If we can help him manage his finances in a way that he can eventually own a couple properties outright, he'll have no problem paying for his tuition.  Of course, if he is really like his Dad, he'll probably get too wrapped up in doing his own business and not even finish college.  

Another easy run today.  My body warmed up after 2 miles instead of 5.  Another day of sleep and recovery always helps.  Not to mention the deep tissue massage I received last night.  ahhhhhhhh.

9 miles, 7:26 ave.

Lifted weights for 45 minutes this morning, then took a nap after lunch.  

Abe starts Kindergarten on Monday so he had his "testing" today to see where is is reading.  He was pretty shy at first; didn't want to be left alone with his teacher.  But he finally warmed up to her after a bribe that I would take him to the bouncy castle if he answered Mrs. Fuente's questions. Mrs. Fuentes said she was very impressed with how smart he is and excited to have him in her class.  Go ABE!

Pretty easy run.  Averaged 7:26.  I got bored in the middle, so I threw in a marathon pace mile to see if I actually even know what 6:20 feels like since I've been racing and doing intervals at 6:00 or under pace and most of my other running is 7:30-8:00 pace.  So I did a couple of strides to quicken the pace and then ran mile 8 of my 14-miler in 6:19.  Felt pretty comfortable.  We'll se how comfortable that feels after 20 consecutive...its not likely to be at all comfortable after the first few but I'm up for the challenge.  Maybe I'll do a longer tempo run at 6:20 pace next week to get a better feel for the pace.

Next week I'm going to do one more "long run" (22 miles), probably on Tuesday.  Then I'll cut back the rest of the week to taper for a fast 5K in Denver Saturday night.  My friends talked Aaron and I into doing the Skirt Chaser 5K with them (it didn't take much convincing, as you may imagine).  The race is put on by Nicole DeBoom, elite triathlete and owner of Skirt Sports in Boulder and the rules are that Women start 3 minutes before the men and the over-all winner gets $500.  I think 3 minutes is favoring the women, but I guess Nicole DeBoom's goal with the race is to empower women and she obviously hopes that there is a female winner in all the Skirt Chaser races she holds around the country.  Women get a running skirt instead of a race tee with our entry.  Men get a tee advertising Skirt Sports.  Honestly, I don't know that I will ever wear my running skirt, but I'll see how comfy it is, I guess.  Anyone else love running skirts?  

I am excited that Aaron is doing the 5K with me even though he hasn't been running much lately AND he has the major disadvantage starting 3 minutes behind me.  We considered the idea of him wearing a long wig and me wearing a Baseball Cap with my hair tucked in and letting him start with the women and me start with the men to see if I could catch him, but then we vetoed that idea when we learned that there is prize money for the overall winner.  So I think he's hoping to come in no more than 6 minutes behind me (3 minutes with the conversion).  When we were engaged and newly wed Aaron used to run with me a lot and he was in GREAT shape.  He once ran a sub 39 minute 10K!  He likes to brag that he HAS actually beat me ONCE in a running race.  It was a downhill mile a few years ago.  We trained at the track together to prepare and on race day he ran 4:46 and I ran 4:55.  I claim that I had a major disadvantage because the race was VERY downhill and he had 200 lbs of weight pushing him down the hill while I only had 120 lbs, in addition, his legs are AT LEAST twice as long as mine, so I had to take two strides for every one of his strides (tounge in cheek).  Those theories could be debated obviously but I'm sticking to 'em.  By the way, Aaron HAS beat me in countless triathlons, so he still has plenty of pride in tact.  I am pretty horrible at swimming and not much better at biking, while he is very well balanced in his swim, bike, run abilities.

Easy 8 around Standley Lake. 

Abe's first day of Kindergarten!  He'll go every day from 11:45-2:30.  Now I can take naps at the same time as my girls after lunch and not feel guilty.  :)  I am really excited for Abe to learn new things and make new friends too.  He's a really smart kid, and I'm sure he'll do great!

Of course my baby chooses the night before my long run to cry from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m.  I guess she doesn't really have a choice when those teeth decide to descend.  Poor thing.  So I only got 5 hours of sleep, but at least I got a nap this afternoon.  And believe me, I'll be going to bed early tonight!  22 miles is exhausting!!  I went alone early this morning.  Didn't make it out last night to plant water bottles so I just carried the fuel belt and stashed it at mile 7.5 since I knew there would be water at my turn around point and I could pick it up on the way back.  Then I stashed it again on the way back at mile 17 and planned to go pick it up later, which I haven't done yet...guess I'll be taking the kids for a ride this evening.  I like the fuel belt for its convenience but it does tend to give me a bellie ache after more than 5 miles.  The route I have been doing for my long runs has drinking fountains at mile 1.5, 5.25, and 10 anyway so its easy to improvise but I do still like to have gatorade instead of water for the energy.  I don't mind carrying a couple of gu's in my hands though...much better than wearing the fuel belt. 

I noticed the billions of prarie dogs near the sewage treatment plant between miles 7-9 and again coming back through  miles 13-15 are starting to look very plump and well-fed.  I guess the grass and weeds are very fertilized in that area.  The plumpness of the prarie dogs must mean that fall is coming.  Those lil' dogs get so fat right before winter and then I dont see them for 6 months and they re-appear in the spring looking all skinny and hungry.  Funny how this cycle is pretty much opposite for me.  I get skinny after working out all summer and then I usually put on a few pounds through the winter/holidays and when spring comes its time to go get skinny again.   

As you can see, 22 miles all by my lonesome can get a little boring.  I did have one exciting event right near the end that captivated my thinking for a few moments.  I saw a person on a cruiser bike that I SWEAR was a man dressed as a lady.  S/He was all decked out in a nice silk sweater, purple polka-dot hankie over his/her wig-looking hair, pressed green capris, and a calm, serene look on his/her face...almost as if s/he was asleep; looked a lot like little red riding hood.  I only noticed him/her for a few moments as we passed, so I didn't get a great look...but I was pretty alarmed with the masculinity of his jaw and largeness of his clean shaven legs.  BURT?  Did you happen to ride your bike through Denver today? 

Went to bed early last night, and slept in 'till 6:30 a.m. ahhhhhhhhhh.  9 hours!  That is amazing!!  Luckily Ali slept through the night too.  She must have been exhausted from the night before.  Aaron left at 5:30 a.m. to go Mt. Biking in Salida with friends so I just slept in and took the kids to the gym later today to run on the treadmill.  I am not a big fan of treadmill running, but I don't mind it about once a month.  I just put the ipod in and tuned out.  My body felt pretty tired from yesterday, but the 7 easy miles loosened me up a bit.  After the first half mile extra slow, I locked in the pace at 7:41, which felt pretty good.  Stretched for a long time afterwards.  Aaron finally got home around 7:40 tonight and he is pretty exhausted too after 35 miles of Mt. Biking on beautiful single track in southwest Colorado.  I guess we'll be going to bed early again tonight.  I don't think I've ever appreciated sleep more in my life than I do right now...'course this is the most consecutive weeks of high weekly mileage I have ever done in my life too.  Time to start the taper.

Got another nice long sleep last night.  Thank goodness.  Ali did wake up crying around 3 a.m. but I just put my pillow over my head because I was too tired to get up and I think Aaron got up and helped her calm down.  I also slept through my alarm, or I guess I got up and turned it off quickly but don't remember...which is SO unlike me.  But I must have needed the sleep.  Woke up around 6:45 and ran 8 miles at a slow recovery pace again.  Stretched for about 30 minutes afterwards and am feeling quite a bit better now.  My last pilates reformer class of the session is today and I have a chiropractor appointment tonight, so I should be feeling even better by tomorrow. 

More recovery running.  The last part of my body to feel recovered is the lateral parts of my calves...I believe its called the peroneous longus muscle, if I remember correctly from Anatomy 101 at BYU.  That muscle used to get super tight when I did a lot of steeplechase drills and hurdle work in college.  Apparantly 22 mile runs aren't too kind to it either.

I feel pretty good though, other than the tight calves.  I'll ice more today and roll out on the foam roller and stretch a lot so I'm ready to race tomorrow night. 

Jogged an easy 5.5 miles this morning to shake out the legs some more.  Got home at 7:00 a.m. and woke up my family to get dressed and walk over to Standley Lake.  Our friends invited us to go waterskiing with them this morning at 7:30, so we just walked the 0.1 mile to meet them at the dock.  It was super fun to get out on the wake board again...its been about 3 years since I've done that!  After waterskiing for a couple of hours we took the kids to their primary party at the church for about an hour and came home to eat lunch/take naps.  I really appreciated the nap as I was pretty tired from the busy morning.  Slept for an hour and felt a lot better and ready to race.  Picked up our babysitter at 3:00, got changed, and left for the race at 3:30.  Arrived in Denver around 4:00 and waited in line for a bit to get our race numbers and my skirt/Aaron's shirt.  Jogged back to the car to change into my running skirt and leave our race bags.  This is my first time even trying on a running skirt....pretty comfy actually.  The only thing I don't like about it is that it feels too immodest to do any sort of inner thigh stretching and also when I run fast, it feels like the skirt is flying up in back and revealing my bum, but my husband promised me it wasn't, so I trusted him.  

Warmed up for about a mile and did 4 strides.  Legs felt a lot better than they have all week, although maybe still a little tight. 

Race started at 5:00.   Went out with the lead lady, a professional triathlete training for her second Ironman in November.  We ran together for the first 1.5 miles.  After about the first mile and a half I started to feel pretty comfortable at the pace we were running and remembered that the men had started just 3 minutes behind us so I'd better push it if I wanted to win, so I picked up the pace a bit and the other woman slipped back.  

Mile 1- 5:45, mostly uphill, felt pretty tight.  Mile 2- 5:45, half dowhill, half uphill, starting to loosen up.  Mile 3- 5:32, finally in the groove, half uphill, second half downhill, decided to leave it all on the course since the prize money was on the line and I knew that if a guy caught me any time in the last half mile I wouldn't have a chance of staying with him, so I guess you could say I was running scared.  Finished in 17:27, average 5:37 pace.  The first guy was 20-30 seconds behind me, a tiny Kenyan lung on a stick...his time must have been around 15:00.  

After I finished I had some water and jogged back to run in with Aaron.  He was pretty maxed out, but finished strong right around 20:00.  Not bad for a 200 lb guy who has only been training 0-25 miles a week sporatically over the past 5 weeks.

We ate free Chipotle Burritos afterwards and bypassed the free beer, opted for chocolate soymilk instead.  YUM!  Awards ceremony was part of the block party afterwards, got my $500 claim certificate and met Nicole DeBoom, former Ironman World Champ and owner/race director.  FUN NIGHT! 

Recovery run around the neighborhood.  I looked like a speedwalking grandma for the first half mile or so as my calves refused to give me any spring in my step.  Still pretty tight from last week.  I finally warmed up though and ended up averaging 7:53 after a very SLOW first couple of miles. 

I had a hard time sleeping last night because I took a TWO HOUR nap yesterday afternoon.  Ahhhh, it felt nice though.  Aaron was kind enough to play with Abe all afternoon so I could sleep while the girls napped.  Then we just played with the kids and had dinner Sunday evening.  Ali is really starting to walk really well now.  She can walk all the way across the room without falling, it is super cute.  Her mobility has made her into quite a handful in Church every Sunday though.  She is not at all interested in sitting still or playing with toys by my side.  She wants to walk everywhere and socialize with everyone.  Yesterday I brought in her little stroller and let her push it around like a walker at the back of the gym behind where everyone was sitting during Sunday School so I at least go to hear part of the lesson.  During the 3rd hour Aaron took her and she did fall asleep finally for a few minutes near the end.  Gotta love one year olds at Church.  4 months and 12 days until she is old enough go to nursery and I can fully participate in my Sunday classes again.