Week 6: Sat/Sun Recap

Most people in Texas want their “Wide Open Spaces.” Not me. I absolutely love my low maintenance lifestyle. I’m so happy that I don’t live in a big house with a large yard. Nope—give me a garden home or a condo any day. It allows me the time to do anything and everything that I need to do without having to worry about watering the yard and cutting the grass. This weekend was a great example.


Saturday: 9 Mile Run/20 min Swim

I debated about what to do on Saturday morning. T3 was doing a ride to San Marcos and I really debated doing that ride. However, Shawn was interested in riding on Sunday so I decided to wait a day. Instead, I met Thon at Stacy Pool on Saturday morning for a 9-mile run. I can’t tell you how great it felt to actually sleep in a little bit on a Saturday morning. By “sleeping in,” I mean to say that I was still up at 6am in time to run at 6:30am. We met at Stacy Pool with the intention of swimming immediately afterward. Well, I was going to swim and everyone else would just soak. Unfortunately, we learned that Stacy doesn’t open until Noon on the weekends and Barton Springs is blocked off this weekend because of the “Austin City Limits” Music Festival. So, I headed over to Deep Eddy Pool and swam for 20 minutes…Two days, two runs, two swims…nice.

Now, here’s what I love about my low maintenance lifestyle. After swimming, the “gang” reconvened for our usual Saturday morning breakfast taco feast at Mi Madres. Shawn and I then left breakfast and headed Sam’s Boat to watch the Ohio State football game with the Austin Chapter of the Ohio State Alumni Association. While neither of us are actual alum of OSU, it’s still great to be in the company of others from home! The game wasn’t necessarily the blow out that we thought it would be so we stayed the entire time.

So, we knew it was a long shot on a Saturday afternoon, but we wanted to drive by our new house to see if it was open so that we could lay down paper and measure the space for our living room furniture, bed and dining room table. By a stroke of luck, the house was open and we were able to take care of the measurements, saving a ton of time and stress later in the week.

The evening ended with a fabulous dinner at Chinatown/Musachino for some sushi with friends Matt and Maria. I wanted to be in bed early for Sunday morning swim class and the bike ride that I postponed.

Sunday: Swim Class and No Bike

Oh well..it just wasn’t meant to be this weekend. Perhaps it was Mother Nature’s way of letting my injury heal for just one more day.

I did get up and go to swim class at 8:00am this morning. I still really don’t think I’m getting faster, but I am consistent. It was a tough workout and my lane partner actually bailed out early. I may be slow, but I always finish my workouts. We did 50 repeats and I averaged between 1:14-1:17 on all of them. I’d really love to get that down to a consistent 1:05-1:10. Maybe someday…

After swim class I met Shawn at Starbucks for a morning cup of coffee and a little newspaper reading. Our next stop was Best Buy and Crate and Barrel to look at TVs, couches and beds.

As soon as we got home, the skies opened up and it started raining pretty hard for about an hour. We were also interested in going to the “Austin City Limits” Music Festival at some point this afternoon, but it meant making a choice—bike ride or concert. While I knew I’d feel guilty, I also couldn’t resist going down there to see the likes of Matisyahu, Sun Volt, The Greencards, Ben Harper and others. Fortunately, it had stopped raining and the venue was in great shape. Shawn put things in perspective by reminding me that we can ride anytime. The Festival was a once-a- year treat. Plus, I still have about 6 weeks to go and I’ll be fine!

So, while we didn’t get to ride this weekend, we still got a ton of personal stuff completed including ordering furniture, donating more items, meals with friends, exercise, live music and shopping! (not to mention a nice snap this afternoon while it was raining)

We couldn’t have done this if we had to weed and cut grass all weekend!!