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Birthday Blast


Karen and I - Team Pay'n'Take

I am seriously bummed the weekend is already over! 
I was having way too much fun! 

I started celebrating my 32nd birthday on Thursday morning 
with a 3,200 meter swim. 
I know. Big deal. 
I actually got out of the water way earlier than usual. Ha! 
Good thing it's the off-season or I would've had to swim 
32*200 or 3.2 miles or something crazy like that! 
The bad news: 
I didn't really invite any of my lane mates, 
so I was having this party in the pool all by myself. 
The good news: 
I didn't care one bit. Still had a blast! 

Yep. A lovely self-portrait. 

After herding the boys out the door and a quick breakfast, 
it was time to ride 32 miles with my training buddy Karen. 
I coaxed Coach M into putting this ride on her plan 
so Karen wouldn't have any excuse to bail on me. 
M must've forgotten that it's my off-season 
because the plan called for a bunch of 2 mile repeats. 
Oh. Right. 
It's Karen's plan - not mine - we are following these days. 
Coach M: I figured you could hang!
So I tried... 


The view wasn't half bad 
and since I took the camera on the ride with me
I took many useless self-portraits. 
Why not? 
Karen was busy focusing on her intervals, 
so I had plenty of time to play around.

The ride was great! 
Lovely views, great pace, perfect company!
What more could a girl ask for on her birthday?


Thursday night I was stressed out 
because I hadn't packed a thing for our weekend trip. 
I was supposed to go on another 32 mile ride with Jennifer 
early Friday morning, and do a whole bunch of other stuff
until leaving town at noon.

I don't like stress. So I cancelled the ride. 
Instead, I got up at 5 am, headed over to the Y, 
and had another party by myself on the spin bike for 32 miles. 
By the time it got light I was back home 
having a nice birthday morning with the family. 

I figured that there might be a slight chance
that I wasn't going to pull off 32 running miles on Saturday. 
So I decided that 6 miles on Friday + 26 miles on Saturday 
would still count for 32 birthday miles. 
This was my party and I was in charge of the rules. 
I like being in charge... 

So I ran next to my kids on their bikes to school, 
dropped them off, ran some more, 
came back to volunteer at the Mustang Gallop, ran home.
 6 miles. Done. 
Time to pack up and hit the road.

6 painfully slow hours later we made it to our destination.
Colleen welcomed us with a house full of food 
and fun friends! Lucky me!!! 

Yep. That's my coach!

Have I mentioned that Coach HT was there? 
You certainly wouldn't want to miss him! 
Love that guy! 
In case you are wondering: 
He did indeed run the entire marathon in this very outfit!

And because this post is already getting rather long and I have a kids birthday party to plan and execute
in a couple of days, I am going to tell you about the marathon in my next post. 
Best for last, right? 
So stay tuned...








Comments

Karen said…
Hey, if I'd known you were posting pictures I woulda fixed my hair.

That was a great b-day ride!!! How adorable - THIRTY-TWO. Remember that for mine, we're going to be doing everything times *FORTY-SIX*. Shut up.

love ya! K.
October 30, 2012
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