HTC is tomorrow!
After months of mentally and physically preparing myself for Hood to Coast, Mike and I will be putting our training to the test tomorrow! Our entire team is a bunch of first-timers for this race, but we have a nice mix of seasoned racers (even an ultramarathoner!) and some relative newbies to the sport. We're really excited! We managed to stay injury-free (Iyengar yoga definitely helps), and I've been trying to eat and hydrate well this week! Tonight, I look forward to putting my pack together and sleeping well. Due to traffic concerns, the race officials are only allowing Van 1 up at the start at Timberline Lodge (no haunting images of The Shining this time), so I'll be sleeping in and lying low for the greater part of the day until we pick up the race in Sandy! Go Team Sylvia's Legacy!
Surprisingly, my legs don’t feel like jello…yet
I had a good week of training this past week, which is good for my morale, considering Hood to Coast is just 12 days away! I had my usual interval and tempo training on Tuesday and Thursday, I added an extra yoga class on Wednesday, and on Friday Mike and I struggled a bit through an evening 4-mile run after work. Saturday was our normal long run through Forest Park. I ran just 6 miles, but I had a good pace and finished really strong.
Today, of course, Mike and I had to ride in the Bridge Pedal, the one day out of the year you get to, not only ride your bike on the I-5 Marquam Bridge and I-405 Fremont Bridge, but also stop and hang out. Since this definitely isn't a racing event (don't even try with the amount of cyclists this event attracts), we took our time and soaked in the amazing city views the 10-bridge route had to offer. I share some of our photos (out of the 150 camera-happy Mike took in just 4 hours' time) here.
Thank you, Shanna
Our friend Shanna is a captain of the Minneapolis Fire Department, and she has become the face of the recovery effort of the bridge collapse. If you haven't seen a gazillion video clips of her in the Mississippi River searching for people in trapped in the water, you haven't been watching the news. As I was watching her on CNN and CBS, and after talking to her husband Peter (my friend since high school), I was reminded of what an amazing woman she is. I'm not surprised that she is avoiding all this attention; she thinks she's just doing her job, something anyone would do. Maybe, maybe not. But regardless, I'm still tremendously proud of her. Thank you, Shanna, for being there for all of us, and thank you to all of the others in this recovery effort.
HTC Countdown: 20 days
In 3 weeks I'll be running in the Hood to Coast relay race. Am I ready? I'm not sure yet. I'm pretty confident I'll run all my legs, but I'm just not sure at what speed. My training hasn't been as consistent as I'd like it to be. Mike and I have been consistent with our long runs through Forest Park, but my I've only been running about 3 days a week, with some cross-training. Today I was reminded of how important sleep is for training. I haven't slept well the last couple of nights, and while I set out to run 9 miles today, I could only manage 6. I did, go out for a bike ride (Bike Gallery is having their annual summer sale!), and I hope to go for another 5-6-mile run tomorrow. Minor setbacks like these happen, and they are disappointing, but I'm determined to train as best I can for the next couple of weeks without overdoing it. At this point, I want to just stay healthy and have a good time out there...even if it means I can't run it as fast as I hope to!