Cool Down

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday morning, we were dripping wet within minutes of taking off. Today before I left for Dunn Bros. I was digging for gloves!! It was 50 degrees on my thermometer, and windy. I managed 10.21 miles (up to 37th St, Century H.S., Viola road and a couple loops around the lake). But I'm still lacking energy and just not quite feeling right. Not much appetite. Actually, I didn't even eat "breakfast" today until about 1:30 after swimming laps for an hour. I'm just now finishing off the piece of pie I bought on Friday. And still have half a caramel sitting on the counter. :-) Running this morning were: Tom W, Dave P, Dawn L-B, Kristin Z, Laura L, Jean M. Joining us for coffee: Sonja K, John S, George H and their guest Marcella (I hope I remembered that right).

Finished reading Blood, Bones and Butter today. It's memoirs of a cook. Really enjoyed it. Quick read. Next I'm going to finally read The Help. I bought it for book club months and months ago but never got it read. Sonja said to read the book before seeing the movie.

Matt and I are changing our biking plans for tomorrow. A couple people thought that biking around Pepin tomorrow would be pretty busy, so we'll bike somewhere around here instead. Not sure where yet though.

Here's a pic of me running at Gamehaven last Tuesday, thanks to Tom O'. :-)

I was really concentrating on where I was putting my feet down. I'm always afraid of rolling an ankle, especially when running in long grass. Monday evening there is a 6:00 PM run out at Chester Woods.

Here are some run and bike pix from last week's tri:

I was wearing a race number skirt during the run. The cord from my shorts was sticking up out of my shorts and my shirt wasn't staying down. Sure wish my belly button wasn't exposed in all these shots. And bad hair ... bad, bad hair. First a swim, then a bike helmet on wet hair, wind and rain, then a run. Yikes.

Made Roasted Beets & Sweets and a salad for supper. I am stuffed.

Hope you're all enjoying a long weekend. It was nice to see some sunshine this afternoon. :-)

Good night.

Tough Run

I decided that my knee could probably handle a long run today since I could bend it fairly well this morning and the swelling had gone down. So I ventured over to the RAC ...

to join the rest of the folks gathered for the scheduled 17.49 mile run. I'm not good at guesstimating numbers but I think probably 40-50 showed up. The sky in the photo above is deceiving. It looks like rather pleasant weather. It wasn't. I wish I had a photo of what it was like running through the heavily canopied Mayowood bike path with the rain just beating down. It was so dark, and I've never run in such hard rain. And it happened again several miles later. I think the only good thing about the morning was that I didn't bring my camera on the run. I would have ruined it. After the first mile, over my the post office, I was already feeling the effects of the very high dew points so I slowed down. And kept slowing down ... It just wasn't a good day. I wasn't adequately fueled or hydrated and my legs were already cramping at about 8 miles. I went into the Apache McDonald's and got a super size cup of ice water and carried that the rest of the run. I brought a GU and a Hammer Gel, both vanilla flavored. Ate the GU at about 11 miles and opened the Hammer Gel several miles later. It tasted really awful so I had to throw it. Don't know what the story was with that. THANK YOU to the gal in the pink top who gave me her last 3 GU Chomps at the last water stop. You are a sweetheart!! They really helped a lot.

After I got back to the RAC and dispensed cookies (a couple to the "pink top gal", FOUR to Andy, and I ate one myself) I went back out for 1.5 miles as I was so close to 20. I felt so much better after that. I was actually running fairly decently at that point. And it felt like the dew point had dropped a little bit. On the way home I stopped at Kwik Trip for my 20-mile "chocolate-frosted-longjohn-straight-up-no-peanuts-no-sprinkles" reward. I totally earned this one.

However, it didn't totally hit the spot. My appetite isn't great and it had either been previous frozen or had been sitting out too long. Wasn't the freshest donut in the case. Whatever. I ate it anyway.

This afternoon, I worked the 40% off sale at GAP. A one day only sale (saw Sonja there) and I had $30 in Rewards coupons. This boatneck 3/4 sleeve knit dress was $69.95 and with the sale and rewards, I ended up paying just $1.97. Sweet. It's cute and comfy on.

That's all I know. Hoping for some better weather tomorrow. Have a good one.

Here We Go Again

Another injury. Hopefully, only superficial and temporary. I was out running this morning and at about 5 miles, my right toe hit a little, and I mean little, blob of concrete stuck to the bike bath. In a split second, I was falling forward. Both hands hit the ground as well as my right knee.

I kept going, running and walking, blood running down my leg, until I got home. I was hoping to run 10 but quit at 7.5. By that time it was also raining. Yup ... I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. I hadn't been up long, and was already having yet another bad day. Things didn't get any better, so I decided to take off in the car rather than sit at home, icing my knee, feeling sorry for myself.

I drove up to Red Wing, and then across the bridge to Bay City, WI. Stopped in a little antique store. Didn't buy anything though.

Then driving south on 35, I saw this sign next to the road.

Errrrrr!! Screeching halt and left I went. 3 miles. To ...

It's a beautiful spot way up on a hill. I picked what I wanted of blueberries, then inquired about raspberries. Yes, they were ripe for pickin' too. So pick I did.

It was painful to bend my knee, so I mostly picked from the top of the bushes. It's just beautiful on that farm. Too bad the weather wasn't quite as nice.

Then I continued south toward Stockholm and Nelson. After 2:00 and no lunch yet! There are some beautiful view of Lake Pepin/the Mississippi along this stretch.

Arrived in Stockholm and after visiting a few of the many quaint shops, stopped in the Stockholm Pie Company for "lunch". I chose Caramel Apple Crunch a la mode.

It was a tough decision. They all sounded good!! Still, I didn't have much of an appetite. (For me, that's unusual but that's the way it's been for a few days now.) So I ate the ice cream and about 1/3 the pie. The rest is sitting on the counter now. A treat for tomorrow.

There are so many cute little shops to wander through. I didn't buy anything, other than one salted caramel (which I ate half of ... yes, it's also sitting on the counter!).

Stopped at the original Nelson Cheese in Nelson. Fun stop. Great old ivy-covered stone building.

I bought a "Dieter's" sandwich to go, no sprouts. Yup ... it's in the fridge. In its entirety. I'll save it for another day.

Never had a Nelson sandwich before, but it sure does look good. For supper, since I knew I needed to eat something if I hope to run in the morning (provided my knee cooperates), a leftover ear of corn and leftover green beans. And a slice of bread.

Made a new cookie recipe from the King Arthur Flour cookbook. Chocolate Peanut Butter cookies. Looks like a keeper. If my knee will bend in the AM, and the swelling is down, I will attempt running and bring them to the RAC. If that doesn't work out, they'll go to Dunn Bros. on Sunday morning (7:30) where I'll try again. My fingers are crossed ... I wanna run.

Hoping that tomorrow will bring me a good day. Good night. ;-)

Steamy

Well, summer is definitely back for one day anyway. Sticky. It was already 72 degrees at 5:30 AM when I left to run down to the Y to swim. With a backpack on, I was pretty wet by the time I got there. Lifted and then swam for an hour. Had a decently good swim. Ran 5.0 miles.

This evening, I rode with Paul Thomford from the Bear's Den at 5:30. The wind was kind of stiff from the south so we rode to Rock Dell. Coming back, I took off for home at Salem Corners and Paul went back to the Den. I was beat. Actually, my legs were kind of dead before I even started. 35.28 mile ride. Temps in the 90's, dewpoint 72.

Matt and I are going to ride around Lake Pepin on Monday. We were going to do it tomorrow, but it's supposed to rain. I think I'll go pick raspberries in the morning after working out. Guess it will be a run day. Lubed my bike chain this evening. It's nice and quiet again. :-) I still keep checking my back tire for a flat. Still haven't gotten over my 3 flats in 24 hours from a few weeks ago. New Continentals are working great, though. I like the red/black color. Snappy.

Here's a few pix from my brother's family's recent cabin vacation. So beautiful.

Rick's going to have another "Run from Rick's Cabin" on September 18. Hoorah!!

Good night all.