Weekend Wrapup

Friday – Rested. Didn’t really feel dead after the race. Felt good, in fact. But it was a “Rest Day” on the old training schedule, so rest I did.

Saturday – 6 miles scheduled. Miles ran – 0. BUT here’s how I see it – I did the race, 75 minutes + of max effort on a 4 mile day, so all I need to do on Saturday is a 4 mile equivalent, or so. So the boy and I rode the bike and trailer into town to drop off a package at the post office. Total – 10 miles on the bike with the trailer, time – good ones…

(On a related note, I’ll stump for outpost.com if you need any geek stuff. I’d ordered a part that ended up having an incorrect description on the website. I called customer service at about 8 PM the day I got it (Friday night), told them, got a return number, got transferred over to Sales, talked with an actually knowledgeable representative, and they agreed to send me what I needed without charging shipping. Cool, I say. Saturday, noonish, Jake and I get back from the Post Office where I’d dropped off the return after doing ‘Click ‘n’ Ship’ and discovering the box didn’t fit in the mailbox. Sitting on the kitchen table is the replacement part from outpost.com. I kid you not.)

Saturday night, Missy asks me “So what training do you have to do this weekend for the Marathon?” I explain to her that I might try to sneak in 4 miles or so Sunday morning, and that I was swapping my long run for the tri. “Why don’t you do the long run Sunday morning before church? I can get up with the boys.”

Sunday, out of the house about 6:10. Head up the hill, past the abandoned school, wander around the neighborhood for a while trying to find the way out of the new section (new as in the last 10 years new, completely alien concept coming from Houston). Find the road I’m looking for, and head down Cow Hill Road to River Road.

When I hit River Road, I’m regretting leaving my sun glasses at the house – the early morning glare off of the river is dazzling. But the weather’s beautiful, the legs loosened up after the first mile, and life is good.

Cruised into Old Mystic about the same time as half-dozen cyclists out for a Sunday Morning ride. There’s a small but steep hill heading up to the stoplight at RT 184, and I got a huge kick out of sprinting up the hill past a couple of the cyclists clicking down into their granny gears. Big smiles all around.

Down the New London Turnpike. Approached Cow Hill Road, checked my watch, and was only about 45 minutes or so. I’d planned for running 6 at 9 minute pace (think I was slightly faster than that, but wasn’t using the ForeRunner, since I was more interested in endurance than speed, and only wanted one fancy gadget – iPod, iLoveU), so I needed about another 10 minutes or so. Plus, Run Run Run popped up in Shuffle right at that exact instant – I kid you not. So I extended on up to Cold Spring, chuckling that I was adding a loop to my run that was, in and of itself, a complete run not so long ago.

Finished up the run in half a minute over an hour. Felt great. Walked in the back door and heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Thinking I’d have a chance to ambush the Boy as he came down to jump on Mom, I hid just around the corner from the bottom of the stairs. Heard a footstep on the landing, jumped around the corner, and scared the crap out of the Wife. Heh. Sorry.

After church, it was chain sawin’ time. The front of our house is textbook New England ‘burbs – small cape parallel to the street with a straight walkway from the middle of the house down the middle of the front yard. The thing that’s been bugging us since we moved in is that, several owners previous, someone had planted hedges on only half of the yard. Unbalanced, bad flow – whatever. They went, and were lugged to the woods. I’ll burn them bit by bit as we need firewood for the outdoor pit in the fall.

Took another bike ride into town that afternoon. I am completely loving the trailer – we stuffed both kids, a leftover pizza, a cooler with drinks, diaper bag, and blanket into the beast and dragged it down to the town green and had supper by the river. What a riot people watching. Got in a little playground time, and some quality time with Drawbridge Ice Cream. So the total for the day is about 7 miles running, 2 hours hard labor, and another 10 miles on the bike. Pretty fly for a white guy.

Today – rested. I did cook the finest hamburger I’ve ever eaten. Take 97% lean ground beef (1.1 lbs). Dice half a white onion into 1/4″ cubes. Mix beef, onion, and a raw egg (you’re going to cook ground beef at least Medium Well out of respect for E.Coli, right?, so the egg gets cooked). Make into patties. Season with salt and ground pepper. Grill. Toast a whole wheat bun on the grill. Just before taking the burgers off, top with one slice of provolone. Take. Eat. Yum.

Happy Birthday, Uncle Sam.