Friday 12 Miler/Saturday Pre Race

It's Sunday night and the Marble Falls Triathlon Results are up, but I want to quickly recap the weekend's workouts for posterity.

Because of the Triathlon, I did my long run on Friday morning at 5:45am with Amy and Lisa. When we arrived at Runtex, Shannon and Brian were also there preparing to do the same Grove Loop, so we all ran together in one big happy Gazelle pile. The 11.5 slow and easy miles or so were spent covering a myriad of topics including Brian's recent engagement as well as mine and training in the heat. The bulk of the run, however, was spent convincing Lisa to stick with Gazelles! (sorry Lisa--one more plug!) She's been wavering back and forth between two really great running groups that have very different methods of training. One of is very structured and caters to people of all levels, making it easier to "fit in" to a pace group. The Gazelle Group isn't as structured as most, and some people have a hard time adjusting to that lack of organization. Plus, it has a reputation as only being for "the fast people." I'm here to testify that a 9+ minute miler can become a 7+minute miler in a quick year. People of all levels can participate. What we all surmised is that whatever the Gazelles lacks in organization is clearly made up in "heart." Our coach is inspiring, enthusiastic and genuinely concerned with each and every one of his athletes. His formula for success starts with believing you can reach your goals with both your mind and your heart. Once you do that, success on the track or course comes naturally. I hope we convinced Lisa to stick with Gazelles because amazing things will happen!

On Friday night, Richard and Stephanie had me and Shawn (Shawn and I??) over for dinner to their new awesome place. Chef Richard made homeade spinach fettucine. I'm talking, pasta maker and all!! It made me think of my Italian relatives who also make homeade pasta. We also had cauliflower and falaffel and wine...SO GOOD!! Stephanie was so kind and is currently letting me borrow about 10 books on weddings, brides, traditions, etc! Needless to say, I was slightly overwhelmed with the amount of information to pour over. Every book had one thing in common though. They all said not to stress out about the wedding. And yet, they write a 500 page book on every detail that needs to happen!!! Can you say, "irony??" We ended the night with Italian Creme Cake and coffee at the neighborhood coffee shop. What a great way to spend a Friday night. We'll definitely be returning the favor when we get moved in to our home.

On Saturday, I woke up and went for a brief bike ride just to make sure it was running smoothly from the tune up. All systems were definitely a-go for the race. The bike was riding well with the loaner back wheel. Shawn and I had a ton of errands and then we headed out to Marble Falls to stay at the Marriott Resort in Horseshoe Bay. I won't go into detail, but it was a pretty dreadful experience. So much so that they took a significant amount of money off the bill! They did have warm showers and a damn comfortable bed so after dinner (salad, soup, bread, chicken with pasta, glass of wine and 1/2 piece of chocolate cheesecake) we got to bed early for my 5:00am wake up call. I wasn't really nervous about the race at all-hence the wine and dessert with dinner. I was treating it as a hard workout and that's precisely what it turned out to be!