Yesterday night, I met my friends Sara and Harley at the Pine Hollow Trail head for a fun run organized by the Cuyahoga Valley National Parks Assoc. They offered a few trails that you could run, we chose the 5 mile loop that ended up being the same loop we did for the Muddy Paws. But that was fine, b/c it is super challenging. The trail has several very technical part and a lot of really steep hills/stairs. So, it was a sweaty, muggy, exerted 5 miler last night. I felt great when we were done, and made myself charge up the hills even if I had to walk it out at the top. We really enjoyed ourselves and capped the night with dinner at the winking lizard. For those of you who don’t know CVNP has a series of races in the fall, every Tuesday in Oct. They take place at different locations and you don’t know what you are doing until you show up. Once we did a team relay, once there was geocaching. It’s a great way to see the parks and have some fun. For $75 you can get all 5 races and a really kickass Pearl Izumi pullover with fall running series embroidered on the back and some of that money goes to the park. You can sign up online, go to the CVNP website or go into Fleet Feet. Good stuff. If you don’t want to fork out $75, you can just pay $5 for each run.

So, I didn’t get home until after 10 and by the time I was showered and in bed it was 11. 5:30 came way too quickly. But I knew Ilana was waiting for me so I dragged my tired body out of bed and ran 5 miles with her. We ran up Fairmount Blvd to Richmond road which is a steady incline that is deceptively hard. But you get to fly on the way back down. So, here I sit at my desk. My legs are pleasantly heavy, but I am tired. I didn’t get enough sleep and I prefer to have 12 hours between my runs if I can help it. Tonight if I can get home in time I want to go to yoga.

I am excited b/c I just printed out a HM plan for Gary. He wants to do the one I am doing in CA in Oct with me. I am thrilled! He’s never ran over 5 miles, but he is super fast and is totally built for running. I hope he gets the bug.

Do you find Patrick Stewart yummy? Baldness and accents = yummy in my world.

Ahhh back to work. If only there was any other way…sigh. Anyway. Sunday morning I got up bright and early planning on a swim at Mentor Headlands. I was supposed to meet someone there at 9, but she called me around 8:30 and couldn’t make it. Well, I was already on my way there and it’s about 45 mins from my house, so I decided to go on out there and see if by chance there were others swimming. There were not. So, I decided that I was there and there were a few people on the beach, so I might as well get in the lake and put my face in and try and swim close to shore. Please no comments, I know swimming alone is a stupid thing to do, but believe me, my feet could touch and I didn’t go deep. The water was surprisingly cold and I was freaked out from the first toe into the water. Seriously, who is this person! I can’t decide what it is I am afraid of, I don’t think it’s drowning. I guess it’s lake monsters. Since I was having a bit of a freak, I decided to at least breast stroke for awhile and get some sort of workout in. So, I managed to breast stroke about 200 yards down the beach, stopping to stand up every now and then. I’m sure the people on the shore wondered what the F I was doing. After going out, I gave free style a go and was able to get back to where I started, but did stop a lot, I certainly didn’t get into a groove and I wouldn’t call it successful. I think if I had had someone swimming next to me I could have done a little better. But if I am ever going to be an IronWoman, I can’t depend on others for my strength. My issues with OW swimming are just stupid and I hate it. Its one thing to not have the stamina, but to just freak out for no reason…sigh. I sat on the shore for awhile afterwards and thought I might cry, threw rocks into the lake for awhile, tried to just enjoy the sunshine, tried to talk myself into getting back in and swimming some more. But I didn’t. I packed my stuff and headed to the pool. I didn’t have a lot of time, so I only did 500 yards. But at least it was something. Oh and I have a killer sunburn on the top of my legs from our long ride, it is making it so comfy to wear jeans today.

Gary and I had a big day of painting planned, but he has pulled a muscle at some point over the weekend and was in a lot of pain. I know he really hurts badly b/c he actually took aspirin and then later a muscle relaxer. This man hates medicine. So, we basically did nothing. It was nice. I spent a lot of time on the porch reading The Host by Stefanie Meyer. My friend Amy met me at 4 and we walked a little over 4 miles around shaker lakes. When I got home my legs were done. I was supposed to get up this morning and swim with Janet, but overslept due to a restless night. So, I hope to get to the pool tonight. Or it might end up being a rest day, but I am trying to only take one every 2 weeks. I had a good week last week, here were the totals:

Swim – 2400 yards (obviously this needs to go up)
Bike – 92 miles
Run – 24 miles

We had such a nice night last night. We have this rad couple Renata & Dave that live across the street from us. R works at one of the museums on university circle, so the plan was for G & I to ride down with Dave to Wade Oval, meet her and then we would head down MLK and into downtown to watch the free concert on public square. Well, we got down to Wade Oval and it was of course Wade Oval Wed (http://www.universitycircle.org/content/events.asp). For those of you who don’t know, Wade Oval has free festivals every Wed night, it’s awesome, a ton of kids are there, if you live in the area you should really check it out. Next weekend the JiMiller Band is playing, I am so there! I am very excited for the Beathles tribute band on Aug 27th too! So, we milled around there, had dinner at the Botanical garden, then ate an amazingly delicious snow cone. Around 7:30 we realized the wind was kicking and the sky was getting a little dark and none of us were too excited about getting stuck downtown in a storm and having to ride home in it (especially on my slowass hybrid). So, we opted to ride around university circle for a few more miles and then biked to Pannini’s in Conventry for a beer and an Indians game. It was a lot of fun. We ended up doing about 14 leisurely miles, although we did have to bike up the giant hill out of Little Italy up to Mayfield, so that counts for something. We made it home right before the rain started around 10pm. Good times.

This morning I was extra sleepy thanks to the drink (1 drink, I am such a lightweight) from last night and had a hard time getting up. Thank goodness I make plans to meet people or I would never work out. Ilana, Brock and I ran up to University School and did some speed work. It’s about 1.5 miles to get there from our meeting spot, then Ilana and I did 4 – 400s with a 200 walk break in between and then 1 -800 (Brock ran 4 -800s, go Brock). I have always been afraid of speed work, but I kind of like it now. I like how my legs burn afterwards and how I am able to really push myself for the last little bit. I suck right now, but look forward to getting better. I am able to do a 400 in about 1:30-1:45. Which keeps me somewhere in the 6-7 min mile range. But my breathing gets really ragged about 200 meters in (there is no way I could maintain that pace for an 800), so I have a lot of room for improvement. We’re going to try and do this every week. So, if anyone in the Cleveland Hts area feels like speedwork at 6am, let me know, you can meet us at the school. Tuesday is the day we plan on doing it, we just got off track this week. I got some new shoes last week at Fleet Feet - Mizuno's, I believe they were the Alchemy's, but don't quote me on that. Anyway, they are stability shoes and I can really feel them under my arch, I am hoping they will get me through marathon training. Unfortunately they are ugly, the soles look like orthapedic nurse shoes :) But since I run in cotton t-shirts, I obviously don't care about style! And hey, yes i have wicking shirts, but who can afford 200 of them? Not me, that's why I do the races that hand them out and unfortunately they are all white and I have a bit too much belly for those shirts right now, they grab the tummy area! So, cotton it is for my morning roll out of bed runs. I'll pull out the nice shirts for races, so I don't look like a total newb :)

Tonight I had a bike ride planned. My riding for the last 2 weeks has been practically non existent. So, I was looking forward to getting 80 miles in this week. So, I wanted to do 25 tonight, but the weather isn’t looking good. If it does storm, I will just get on the trainer and watch a movie, which is fine by me. I also need to find a July tri to sign up for. I can’t do Milton Man b/c I have a hard trail 10 mile race the day before, so I remember being really sore from it last year, so doing a tri the next day is probably a bad idea. So, I need to find one on the 20th. That will be my last one before GTC.