Our Tour of Heber

This weekend was so much fun!

Friday I did my long run. I was going to go for 90 minutes, but ended up having to add probably 10 minutes on because a train was stopped on the tracks the way I had planned on going. Oh well, it turned out ok. I got to my turn-around point, the base of City Creek in 54 minutes. Have I mentioned how much I love the drinking fountain up there!? Coming down was much quicker, and luckily the train was gone by the time I got back there so it took me 44 minutes to get home. My total time ended up being 98 minutes so I'm going to say I did about 9 and a half miles. It was fun! My knee was hurting a little most of the way home, but it wasn't anything serious enough to make me walk or anything, and it didn't hurt after I stopped. I hope if I'm diligent about my stretching, it will get better and not cause me problems at Utah Half.

Friday night we went up to Heber where we spent the night at my Dad's house so Pete and I could wake up early and go ride together while my dad and step-mom watched the kids. I fed George at about 6am and we left by 6:30 so we told my dad we'd be back by 9:30. I knew George would be hungry by then, but I hoped it would be ok!

At first it was a little chilly so we both had jackets, but we promptly took them off before the first big hill. We rode up around Midway, then up, up, up to Francis. Yikes, I am not used to hills anymore! It was fun to have some challenging terrain and beautiful scenery for a change! It was also great to be able to ride with Pete! It's been a little ridiculous that I'll go ride for 3 hours, then come home and he'll go ride for 3 hours so we hardly see each other most Saturdays. I just felt so happy to be out there the whole time, and it was so beautiful. At one point, I asked Pete, "Ok, when are we moving back here?" He reminded me that we don't have to move there because we have people there we can visit. Oh yeah. Nice.

Here we are at the Joranelle overlook after we'd been riding for about an hour. That hill was extra hard for me, and I couldn't figure out why at first. It wasn't untill more than half-way up, after a guy had ridden past me like I was standing still and Pete was getting farther and farther away, that I realized I still had 3 or 4 more clicks to get to my easiest gear! I was making it much harder than it had to be. I did better on the other hills! :)




We also ran into Mindy's old preschool teacher up there riding with her husband so that was fun!

It took us almost exactly 2 hours to get to Francis so we took a more direct route home, and just rode through Heber. It was so fun coming back down all those hills! I haven't done that in a long time since all my rides lately have just been trying to go as fast as I can on relatively flat since that's what my race will be. I know this was good for me, though, and I'm looking forward to working on hills again after my half ironman.

We did a total of 40 miles in 3:08 which is almost exactly how long it took me to do 50 last week! Thank you, hills.

We got home just after 9:30, which is what time we told my dad we'd be back, and George was just waking up from a nap. I fed him then headed out for a little run where I saw Mindy's teacher and her husband ride by again! That was kind of funny. I felt really good for the first 4 minutes of the run, but then my knee started hurting so I turned around at 5 minutes, thinking I'd stop at 10. But when I got home, I felt better so I kept going for another 5 before turning back around for a total of 20 minutes. It was really supposed to be 30 minutes, but I always feel bad about running for too long after I've already been gone for 3 hours on my bike. I feel like I cold have gone for 30, though. If that means anything!

We hurried and got ready to leave, then drove to this faraway park for a family reunion for Pete's family. It was fun park, and we had a nice time. It was fun to see everybody, though I'm not as social as I should be.

We went back to Heber where Angela gave me a hair cut, then we turned the kids over to them again so Pete and I could go out to dinner, then to the final Harry Potter movie. We ate at our favorite place, and I was so happy to get the shrimp tacos I've been craving since last time we went there. So good!

The movie was really good too, but I feel bad because George ended up waking up just after we left and kept his grandma and grandpa up pretty late. Poor kid. He's got 4 new teeth coming in on the top too! Ouch.

Sunday morning, George was up at about 7:45 so when he went back to sleep for his nap at 9, I went back to bed too, thinking I'd just sleep for an hour or so then we'd head home. We had to be back by 1:00 for church, especially because Pete was speaking. Then, all a sudden, I woke up and it was 11:30! We had an hour drive ahead of us and none of us were ready for church! Luckily the kids had baths the night before, and we didn't have too much to pack. We managed to get out of there by noon with grilled cheese to eat on the way thanks to Angela. It was a miracle that we made it in time, and Pete did such a great job on his talk. I am so proud to have him as my husband. :) And thank you so much to Dad and Angela for making this fun weekend possible!