New directions

Whenever I leave my house to go on a run, I have a general idea of the path I am going to take. And 90% of that time, my run turns out to be completely different than I had planned. This Saturday was one of those runs.

I moved to a new neighborhood in June. My old neighborhood contained a limited number of roads and paths so even an 8 mile run without repeating sections was difficult. With my new neighborhood, I can easily string together a 20+ mile run, and Saturday I had a 13 mile run to do. I left my house and decided to try running down a new road, thinking it would give me an extra mile or so before going to one of my standard runs. When I run I just usually turn at each street & see what that road has to offer. At one point, I turned down a road which I thought would give me an extra 1/4 mile and 3 miles later I was back at the turning point. The weather was beautiful, the scenery was new and nice, and it turned out to be one of the best runs I have had in a really long time, with only 4 miles of it covering ground I had run before.

Today I just got back from a 34 mile ride. I rode with Sherri, the person I did most of my half-ironman biking, and three people I hadn't met before. The cue-sheet was FOUR pages long (about 70 turns?) but it was a great ride, not too taxing but with a couple of significant hills. It felt SO good to be back on the bike again, enjoying a Sunday morning and some good conversation.

With the awesome run, and the great bike ride, I have had a fantastic training weekend and am happy with my decision to sign up for the race.