49 days...

49 days. The amount of time until I toe the line at Ironman Arizona!! Crazy. I must say it's coming together pretty well. I have completely recovered from the sinus infection/flu that I had. I had an eventful week this past week culminating in serious amount of work stress at the end of the week. Hopefully the stress will be rewarded soon...

So this weekend consisted of a long ride on Saturday and a long run on Sunday. I woke up Saturday after a very long week to temperatures barely above 40 and some dark clouds. I was still worried that I wasn't completely recovered from the recent sickness so I made the call to ride indoors where I would stay warmer and could regulate my HR better. So I did my century ride indoors. Yes, the whole thing. Well, kind of. I went for 5 hours instead of 5.5 so I'm guessing I was around 90 miles, but close enough right? I probably would have kept going, but we had a game to get to!!! Quick shower and we were off to watch the ducks rip apart the Washington State Cougars!

Yes, we had the band come and play at our tailgate...pretty awesome huh?? Well, it's not the normal band, I guess it's their alumni marching band, but cool enough! Meg requested Duck Tales for me, but we had to settle for a few other classics! Awesome. The food on tap consisted of pasta salad, potato salad, Sliders, and plenty of veggies!! Oh, and a few cold ones. Not a bad way to reward yourself for 5 hours on a bike trainer!

So, we watched the Ducks completely dominate the Cougs for the first half and called it a day. 42-0 was enough for us! Got a good night of sleep and woke up to even colder weather than Saturday and rain. WOW. So, my 20 mile scheduled run now sounded terrible. I ate breakfast and jumped back in bed for 30 minutes in hopes it would warm up a little outside. I know wishful thinking!

Finally I put on a long sleeve shirt, a vest over that, threw the runners on and headed out. It turned out to be a great run. I kept it at a moderate effort to not push it to hard considering I was still somewhat recovering from the recent illness. I averaged my 8/mile throughout and felt great! I finished the last 4 miles strong as I've been working on finishing my long runs strong this year. Mission accomplished!

So, I'm feeling very happy that we are 49 days out right now. I'm feeling fit and somewhat refreshed by being forced to take a little time off. I'm excited for next 7 weeks of training and looking forward to continuing the fitness gains as I prepare to tackle this goal. It's hard to explain in words how excited I am to have this all coming together. Now I must get back to my beloved fiance and our couch! Oh, so I have a 110+ mile ride scheduled for this next weekend...should I invite DUCK VADER to ride with me? Think I could hang on his wheel? How rad is this guy??? Thanks for reading,

-T