Everyone Says Hi

Today was a beautiful day. I drove Mindy to school, but regretted it because it was nice enough, and we had enough time that she could have rode her bike. Ethan threw up again this morning, though, so I had Pete take the Jeep to work so I wouldn't have to wake Ethan up again after he went back to sleep. Poor kid. But he seemed totally better when he woke up at like 9 or 10. I still kept him home from school, though.

I finished painting the downstairs bathroom today! Yeah! It's so nice, and now it's just screaming for us to do the base boards and put a shower in to get it finished. Maybe we'll do something cheap and easy just to get it done. It will be nice to have a shower for guests.

Since Pete had the Jeep, I road my bike with the bike trailer to pick Mindy up. Since she didn't have her bike, this meant putting all 3 kids in the trailer on the way home. I was a little worried about this since that's not exactly what it's built for, and I didn't want to hurt my bike, or any of my kids. They all sat very nicely, though, and didn't even fight (very much) on the way home. They were all so cute just happy and talking to each other. 

It was such a nice day that when we got home, we went for a walk to the store. Well, I walked and the kids road their bikes - including Elle. She took forever. Mindy and Ethan were way ahead of us both ways. She was so excited that she can actually push the peddles to ride her little trike now that I had to let her do it. It probably won't happen again, though.

When we got home, I got dressed for my ride, then Pete got home and I set out for this workout:

Brick:
B: 120 minutes at RPE 4 followed by…
R: 60 minute recovery run at RPE 2-3
Stretch well afterwards….

I decided to ride up 800 South past the zoo and up Emigration Canyon. That is a fun ride, with quite a fun hill in the middle. Well, that is if your definition of fun is: being so steep that you have to stand up or else you'll tip over. But I thought, "Hey, it's more fun than child birth!"

I got to see an elephant as I rode past the zoo too, so that was fun.

When I got up to the canyon, there were so many people riding their bikes up, I felt like I had joined a club or something, and everyone says hi! Thinking about that, of course, I got that David Bowie song in my head. You know the one that goes, "Dooo do do do do-do-do dooo." Know what I'm talking about? Anyone?

I argued with myself for quite a while about whether I should go all the way to the top of Little Mountain or just turn around at one hour. I finally ended up turning around at an hour because I couldn't remember how long it takes to get to the top (now I'm thinking it's like 1:40), and I didn't want it to get dark or rain on me. I could see that a storm was coming my way.

I was excited for how easy the way home would be because it's almost all up hill on the way up, but the wind way WAY stronger once I turned around. It was some serious wind, and I found myself not even going very fast on the down-hills. When I got the biggest hill, though, I said, "Just try and stop me now, wind!" And it sure did try to stop me. I was pelted with dust and little rocks, and that hurts when you're going 35 mph! A little while later, I swear it even picked me up and moved me over a foot or so! At least that wasn't when I was going 35, but I still yelled out, "Woah!" Or something. There was a guy in his yard right there too, he probably was wondering what my problem was!

It was a little bit of a struggle to get home, more of a struggle than I had planned, and I ended up having to turn around and go a different way because there was a long train. Doesn't that always seem to happen? I guess that's what I get for living on the wrong side of the tracks. That and frequently seeing people being arrested - which I saw at about 3 minutes out.

Anyway, when I got home I was pretty cold so I put on some pants and my rain jacket along with my running shoes, hat and ipod. I really didn't want to go back out there and run, but running in that weather is not as bad as riding in it. My feet were numb for the first 15 minutes or so, but then I warmed up nicely, and I had a really good run. I was really glad to have my rain jacket since it started raining about half-way. I figured out that it can go all the way over the brim of my hat and it stays on there nicely, keeping my hears dry and my head warm. I was thinking how nice it would have been to have at the marathon. I need to start a list for my special needs bag for the IM:

1. Sunscreen
   
2. Extra Perpetuem
   
3. Rain Jacket
   
4. Light Jacket
   
5. gloves
   
6. Excedrin
   

What else am I going to need?

I was kind of hoping that Everyone Says Hi would come on since I'd had it in my head, but it never did. I actually don't know if it's even on there. A song that I did enjoy, however, was I Am The Greatest Man That Ever Lived by Weezer. That song is really fun to run to! I also like to play it on Rock Band. Actually I sing, but I do have to turn the mic over to Pete on one part where it gets too low for me. Anyway, I listened to that song at about 35 minutes, and I was just having fun. After that, for the rest of the run, I really felt like I could keep running forever!  It was like I hadn't even done a bike ride before-hand. This is a good sign, I think. Even though it was just a 2-hour bike ride. That used to be my long bike! Now that was a long post, and it's already 11:00! Sorry about that.