building phase

The last two weeks have been tough. I did not feel fully recovered from last weekend until my rest day on Thursday. But at the same time I am very happy with where I am at in my training. I'm feeling good about my first couple run races coming up. I'm a little less inspired by my "big" races choices and rather uninspired for Boise 70.3 or Lake Steven's 70.3.. So I have been going back and forth and have not registered for either with the possibility of figuring out other races that would be more interesting. It feels a little weird to know my B and C races but not my A races.. That being said I still keep training and am enjoying training as much as ever. (If you know a cool half iron race let me know).

Friday night Kyle met me for a run from my office down the water front. It was sunny in the morning so I grabbed running short vs tights but when we got started around 5p it was super chilly. I wanted to push myself and my leg speed and I asked Kyle to pace me and even though it was a bit slow for him he was sweet enough to go along with it. We warmed up the first 15 min with sub 9 mi/m pace then Kyle started picking it up. I did not look at my garmin and just focused on staying on his elbow no matter what and just trusted him. By teh half way mark I was over heating and had to take of my jacket even though it was probably under 40 degrees out. While Kyle stayed all bundled up. On the way back I had to fight my legs and my mind from feeling tired and just stayed right on his elbow. The last half mile I pushed myself just a little it more and picked up the pace as much as I could. It was great I just trusted Kyle and ran just over 7 miles at either sub or right at 8 mi/m pace :)

On Saturday morning the weather did not really cooperate - it was snowing. Kyle and I are not big fans of indoor riding over an hour so we stalled and dragged our feet getting the bike trainers till around noon we saw that the weather had cleared up and the roads were only wet. We bundled up and grabbed our road bikes to do a quick lap around Lake Sammamish before the weather turned again.
As usual Kyle led and I drafted but teh roads were wet and messy and Kyle only had a short "beaver tail" style fender. Which is just enough to keep him clean and dry. In contrast I was being covered in dirt and muddy road grit. By teh end of the ride I had to even take off my glasses because I couldn't really see anymore... When we were finished it was funny to see the difference between how clean and dry Kyle was.

It was snowing and actually sticking as I went to bed on Saturday night and this morning we woke up an hour early thanks to "spring" forward to make it to a team run from Madison Park. It was tuff especially for Kyle who is not a morning person at all. We made it on time and the roads were almost dry and the sun was shinny. We got started around 8a and broke into natural groups by pace. Kyle and a couple Kyle ran easily off the front and I hung with a group of a couple Girls including my Coach Kainoa. I felt surprisingly good and just stayed with them for the entire run to Seward park and back. I do most of my training alone or chasing Kyle so it was fun running with a group that was closure to my pace - it made the 2 hours cruise by. I actually only needed to run 1:50 but was glad I stayed with them the entire way - I was surprised how well I did considering it was my longest run in a while. In the end we got about 14.4 miles in 2 hours :)

And with that it is time to get ready for another week of juggling training, work and recovery...