Last week was one of my hardest weeks yet for Ironman Muncie 70.3 training.
I finished the week with a 50 mile bike ride and 4 mile run on Saturday and then Sunday, 10 miles at steady state.
Saturday:
I rode 50 miles with Jake– someone I’d never really met in person, except one time when we ran by each other. We are twitter friends and Glenn is coaching him for Muncie 70.3. I mean I felt like I knew him, but I didn’t in real life. He wanted to meet way early- so we met at 6:15am on the monon and took off. I have to say, although I’m the one who reached out and asked to ride together, I had a little anxiety riding with someone who I hadn’t really met. I even had a weird anxiety dream. 50 miles took us 3 hours an 20 minutes. That’s a long time to hang out with someone you don’t know.
We talked to entire time. (Glenn probably thinks that means we weren’t working hard enough, but I don’t care. We kept 15 mph and that is fine with me. I was working that’s for sure) You learn a lot about someone when you ride your bike for 3.5 hours together. He almost had me in tears when he told me about his proposal to his fiance, Meghan. (also a twitter friend)
When I ride with Glenn, he has the GPS and I have no problem pestering him about where we are on miles, but I didn’t want to go overboard asking Jake too much. He kept me informed though and I pedaled on. At mile 16, we stopped for a minute to take some gel and I felt really defeated when he told me we were at 16 miles. Dude. That’s not very far when you’re riding 50 and I felt like we should have been at 22 or something.
We rode up the monon (duh) for the beginning of the ride an ended back down toward our hood riding around Butler’s campus and Crown Hill Cemetery at the end. As soon as I got home, I took a gel, changed shoes and headed out for my four miles. I felt like I’d crawl them, but ended up running around 7:20 pace. My last mile was 7:08 and I worked for it. It was freaking hot and I was done working out. DONE.
Sunday:
Glenn, Marshall and I ran 10 miles. We got up early and were on the monon by 7:00am. The workout was “10 miles steady state”. Steady state pace being between 7:00-7:30. My legs were tired for this run and I ran half of it with the stroller. Glenn and I took turns. I like running with the stroller though. I feel like I can “hide” behind it sometimes. I’m not sure if that’s necessarily a good thing, but it’s what I do.
I started with the stroller and we switched off every two miles until the last two miles. Then I did one and Glenn did the other, so that it would be even and we both did 5 stroller miles. He offered to take my last mile for me, but I wanted it. We had just done two miles at 7:00 pace and honestly I wanted to slow down a bit and pushing the stroller would be my excuse to do so. We slowed the mile down to 7:19. For the last mile, I would have been content running anything sub 7:30, but I wanted to be stronger than that, so when I felt myself slowing down, I would grind it out a little harder. We finished it out with a 6:55 mile. I was happy with it and again, ready to be done working out.
The miles looked like this:
Mile 1- 7:46 – stroller
Mile 2- 7:25 – stroller
Mile 3- 7:22
Mile 4- 7:23
Mile 5- 7:22 – stroller
Mile 6- 7:18 – stroller
Mile 7- 7:00
Mile 8- 7:00
Mile 9- 7:19 – stroller
Mile 10- 6:55
I was pleased, but the legs were shot for sure.
After the run, I had a flag football game. I know it’s a stupid intramural game, but man my body was tired and I was kind of sluggish on the field. I’m not exactly an important member of the team, other than the fact that you have to have three girls on the field. It was hot and I didn’t really want to chase the other girls around the field, but my entire team was really hungover though, at least I felt better than them.
I came home and was determined to take a good picture of Marshman for his first birthday invitations. They are going out like two weeks late, (because I was going to try to make them for a hot second to save money. (whomp whomp) but that’s par for the course on how I operate. I can’t help but share some of the pictures. These two aren’t any that I used but they are really cute. I think.
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| My blue eyed boy. |
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| This standing by himself is newish. If he tries to walk (he’s at 3-4 steps on his own) – his arms are in the air. Celebrating before he even takes the step. Can we all live like that? |
Turns out I had quite the little Sunday planned, later on, five of my friends came over to see Marshall (one lives in CA and one in MI, and were in town for a wedding so this isn’t a super regular group to get together).
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| Beautiful, fun, awesome friends. |
We headed to Flatwater to have dinner and drinks on the patio. LOVE. Sunday Funday lasted until 10pm when we landed at Monkey’s Tail to karaoke & by the time it was about to start, we all decided we were tired and wanted to go home. And also reminded ourselves that is was Sunday.
Glenn & Marshall took us to the bar. Yes this included people sitting on laps and piling into the hatch part of our trailblazer.
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| College kind of fun with a baby though… 29 not 19. |
After flat water we went to Chumley’s and the gentleman below started making fun of us for having fancy bags or something. So, I called him out and told him if he wanted to make fun, then at least give us a real roast. I practically begged him to roast me but he wouldn’t. He was insanely intoxicated and somehow we ended up dragging him with us to Monkey’s Tail where he bought “dollar shots” for the group. I declined, but really am pretty sure the shots consisted of pink lemonade and that’s about it.
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| This guy. Hey guy, don’t make fun of me OK? |
Emily’s husband Andy took us all home, but not without a stop at McDonalds for ice cream. I can’t end a day/night out without a chocolate dipped cone or McFlurry.
I was a tired mama who wanted a lot of water this morning. But is was worth it and I had a very beautiful rest day today.