Fitness, Food, Fiver...

Just a short catch up post.  Great week last week, fast hilly ride on Tuesday with A to Dillion and back.  As I said earlier, she rocked it without a smaller granny gear, not walking once, we have come a long way.  Great sunny, hot, sweaty ride!  Later that day I swam laps for 40 minutes at the gym & shared a lane with a wonderful 73 yrs young woman.  So inspiring & so full of life.  She recently swam in a 1 mile race two years in a row, in the ocean...if she can do it...dagnabbit...so can I.

Thursday Triple A training hit Lake Sonoma again for a GREAT swim!  We were stronger than before and swam our length 1.5 times.  Compared to the ocean for the tri last weekend, the lake was pure bliss, I adored it!  Then we got on our bikes and rode the gorgeous route to Dry Creek store.  Fantastic sandwiches and then looped back on the quieter wine country roads to our car.  I LOVE being on my bike, I am so relaxed & chill.  I love to swim and run as well but man, I feel at home in the saddle for sure.

Today I really wanted to run, hadn't been on the road since a 2.5 miler last Sunday after the Tri ~ didn't have the kiddo care to get it done all week and man that made me appreciate my usual husband, preschool & grandma care all the more!  Had a great lazy morning with dude and then hit the gym, he is currently in love with playcare (great for mom) and hit the treadmill.  Was less than excited about running on a treadmill while it was breezy and cool and sunny outside but....had a FANTASTIC run!  My music was thumping & body felt so strong and just good good good.  No foot pain (totally forgot until tonight that it has been aching a bit again on runs, nervous since I already had cortisone shot.  PT next week) or even fatigue, rocked it so strong for 5.5 miles at a hearty 5.9 pace for me, just felt soooooo strong.  Great feeling and so surprised since I thought I might just slug out 3 miles to feel like "I ran" this week.  Then swam and played with dude in the pool all afternoon, overall a great workout day :-)  Ponderings of a late fall marathon are simmering in my brain...

Two fantastic links for today:

YUM!
Kale Salad

So INSPIRING:
A girl can dream...

A little snippet of the road to an Ironman, please click the link & read the whole story, so motivating:

Race morning couldn’t arrive quickly enough. For months, I’ve watched this race, all of its 70.3 miles worth of moments, play out in my head. Along the way, sacrifices made to make sure I arrived at the start line as ready as I could be. I gave up coffee. I went to bed early. I woke up early. I ate clean. I took supplements. I never, ever missed the recovery window. I arrived at goal weight. I compartmentalized my training. I brought in the babysitter. I balanced between my workouts, my work, my husband’s workouts and my child. I committed only to what it would take to achieve this goal. I listened to my body. I had a race plan. I wrote it out. I read through it over and over again. I worked my mind’s eye in overtime, going through the race. I arrived at race day not wondering what would happen but knowing how it could happen. And then ready to make it happen out there. I focused only on where I wanted to go. I focused only on my successes. I forgot I ever had failures. I found only proof for success. I searched through my race history and reconnected to every race I won. I went back through my notes. I made myself read and absorb. This is what I’ve done. This is what I can do. This is what I will do. I found my confidence by building it. And once I built what I knew it would take, I found a calm in my confidence. More importantly, I trusted myself, faith in knowing that I wouldn’t set the goal if I couldn’t do it. Trust is confidence.