Two Months and Six Days...

Well, I haven’t blogged lately. It’s been a month! Guess I've been a little busy with Ironman training and such. Oops.

Lately, I’ve done a lot of biking. Extra biking during the week and even on the weekends! This was due to a very sore big toe on my left foot.  This came about after a lot of car travel and then I started to feel the pain at the end of the 5K I ran on June 1. A recent X-ray ruled out a stress fracture (yay!) and I did some research (i.e., Google) and found a really interesting website and found some tissue release techniques specific to thebig toe. I've been using them and they really help! But for now, back to biking!

The weekend of June 8-9 called for a 74 mile ride out of Culpeper on Saturday. I had been looking forward to getting back there as the hills would be great for Wisconsin training! There was a small group of folks also training for IMMoo that joined Team Rabbit, and it was nice to bike with some familiar faces! The cicadas were out in full force that weekend. I got a direct hit to my jaw – and it really hurt! Thankfully it did not leave a bruise! Haha The next morning Team Rabbit met up to ride across the Chesapeake Bay over the William Preston Lane, Jr. Memorial Bay Bridge (known as the Bay Bridge for short) for the One Mile Bay Challenge swim! It was a fun swim event. The water wasn't too salty and the temperature was perfect. I wore my sleeveless wetsuit for practice, but I could have gone without it. After we finished up our swim we went in search of coffee for yours truly then headed back home. As we crossed back over the bridge we could see the 4.4 mile swimmers in the water below between the bridge spans. That was very cool! You can read our rap from that weekend, here. After I got home and relaxed a bit I got my bike and went out for a short recovery ride. I could definitely feel my legs from the Culpeper hills!

On the Covered Bridges ride!

Next up is the weekend of June 15-16. That weekend was a lot of fun! It was a double bike weekend – with a total of nearly 150 miles! We biked 72 out of Frederick, Maryland on Saturday and 77 out of Gainesville on Sunday. Saturday we (me, Carol, and Jeff) did two loops out of Monocacy Middle School. I have only ridden out of there twice I believe; once with Carol and Marlene, and once with Team Z. It was a beautiful day for a ride! The sun was out and the temperature was perfect. Hard to believe it was the middle of June! It takes about an hour to get to the school from my house and the scenery is just amazing! It is hard to believe that this close to home there are still one lane covered bridges in use. I even took a picture of one of them. Look at that amazing sky! After a successful ride, it was back home! Once there Carol and I suited up for a swim at my outdoor pool! The water felt nice and it was good recovery for the legs. We determined that that had been our fourth swim that week! On Sunday Carol and I headed out to Gainesville for a two-loop 77 mile ride. The day was overcast and again not too hot. I thought we would get a bit of rain but it held off, which was nice. There was this one road – Hopewell – that we rode on twice as it was on each of the loops. That road is a bit of a bear! Definitely not the worst of the hilly roads we have ridden (or have yet to ride), but our legs were feeling it! All in all it was a successful ride! After we returned to our car the second time, we changed into running shoes and did a little loop around the parking lot and finished with 4 burpees! I also did 4 cartwheels – first time in a while that I've done cartwheels. You can read the Rabbit Rap from that weekend, here!

Trixie' new friend, Sheila!

The weekend of June 22-23 called for another trip to Culpeper! This time for 88 miles! We (me, Carol, Pam, and Jeff) did a repeat of our 74 mile ride from two weeks prior and afterwards added a 7 mile out and back for 14 more and a total of 88. It was a nice and sunny day and got a bit warm. It did start out chilly though because I used my arm warmers for a bit! The hills seemed tougher to me this time but it was likely a combination of the heat and tired legs! This was the third build week so I guess tired legs should have been expected! Etlan wasn’t so bad but I was quite happy when we got through Round Hill and Scrabble! I would have been happy to call it a day after the first 74 miles but my rabbits motivated me to go out for the additional 14. I was of course very happy I did! We made a well-deserved stop for Ledo’s pizza after the ride and after Carol and I were on a mission to clean up because we were headed to a Grease Sing-A-Long at Wolftrap! We had planned to buy lawn tickets at the door but they were sold out and we ended up in the pavilion. This was actually a good thing since we had been going since pretty early that day! On Sunday I was meeting P-Diddy for a run before outdoor swim practice. I woke up to a little drizzle but figured a little rain wouldn't hurt us – we were planning to swim anyway! P and I met at the pool parking lot. We started off on our run and the farther away we got from our cars the more it rained! It poured so much that there were huge puddles in places on the sidewalk that were not there on our way out! Right after we finished Carol showed up. Since it was still raining – a lot - we were wondering if the swim practice was going to be held! Little by little some cars started showing up in the lot and the coach arrived! Practice was on! I have to say it was a lot of fun swimming outdoors in the rain! We swam for about an hour then that was it for me for the day. Click on to read our Round Hill Rap!

So, this brings us to last weekend. Finally – a recovery weekend! And I truly took advantage of the entire recovery week! I only had two swims and an easy run during the week. On Saturday morning I had a short, 22 minute run and that was it! Then I was off to a little weekend away with some friends. I was heading to Arrington, Virginia to the cottage of a high school classmate and three other friends from high school. Funny enough this was exactly one year after last year’s derecho and our 30^th high school reunion pub crawl! Seriously, we were all inside the Fish Market in Old Town Alexandria when the storm (what storm?) came through and none of us knew about it! Well, not till after the fact that is! Power was out all in the area and our actual reunion was cancelled due to power being out at the hotel. So it was funny that we were all together again! It was honestly a nice relaxing weekend with no plan, just chilling and catching up with old friends. Just what I needed!

This week I am back on the training bandwagon full swing! Lots of swim/bike/run on tap, even though I’m headed out of town Saturday for a family reunion in Pennsylvania! Thursday (Independence Day) I have a fun and casual Sprint Triathlon with some friends at a local pool. Then on Friday after a short work day I will do a hilly brick workout with Carol at Prince William Forest Park: 50 bike miles followed by 3 run miles! Sunday I plan to run about 5 miles with my cousin on the mountain she lives on in Pennsylvania! Yay for more hills!

As of today there are just two months and six days until Ironman Wisconsin! Yikes!! But honestly, I am super excited. Next weekend is the Moo training weekend in Madison! A lot of our group is headed out there for this. We will have an opportunity for an open water swim on Saturday morning followed by riding the bike course. My plan is to do as much of the 112 miles as possible! Sunday the plan is for one loop of the run course – or 13.1 miles!

Happy and Healthy Training!