So it’s been almost a week since I last posted…. I’ve been both busy and not.  The wedding was fun on Friday, but the drive home on Saturday was not, it poured almost the whole way.  Yuck.  It was actually scary at times, I’m glad JMR was driving and not me.

We didn’t get back until 5 on Saturday due to the rain making the trip take much longer than expected, and we also stopped by to pick up Patrick from the kennel.  I was tired from being up late on Friday and the nerve-wracking drive home, so the 12 planned miles weren’t happening that night (and it was hot out!).

Sunday I woke up to drizzling rain and grey skies, I realize that if it rains on race day, I will have to deal with it, but riding in the rain by choice on a regular training ride scared me, especially because the route I was going to ride was a new one and I only knew a couple of people riding.  I decided I would run the 12 and do the longer ride on Monday when the roads weren’t slick.  After my run I met up with the club to watch the bike races that were going on that weekend.  The location for the races on Sunday was in an area called the Hill, which is a known as an Italian neighborhood in Saint Louis mostly due to the large number of restaurants and local italian grocers, so I was looking forward to eating some food from the local vendors.  I had a few beers and some other snacks the club brought but never made it to the food vendor area.  Bummer.  I also ran into my aunt and uncle which was a surprise too, I tried to find them later because we didn’t get to chat for too long when they stopped by but they had already headed home.  I don’t blame them, by late afternoon it had gotten really hot!

I left around 5 to head to the store to grab something for dinner.  When I got home, I took the little guy for a walk and then planted myself on the couch.  I’m not sure what it was, the long run in the heat or not eating enough afterwards, but I was exhausted!

Monday morning when I woke up it was also grey and gloomy out, it wasn’t raining, but it looked like it might and the thought of riding 50 miles solo with a chance of rain really wasn’t sounding appealing or safe.  I really should have dragged my butt to the gym and rode the stationary bike, but the bike fit is different than my bike and anything longer than 20 miles starts to get REALLY uncomfortable.  For the 45th time, the number one item on my Christmas list will be a bike trainer so I can ride my bike at home (in front of the tv) during crummy weather days.

Sadly the most exercise I got on Monday was a trip to the grocery store to buy healthy food for the rest of the week, that counts for something right?  Being proactive?

I did manage to finally get back on the wagon and ran Tuesday evening after work, only 4, but at a decent pace.  The plan today was to get up this morning and swim but I woke up at 3a with a massive case of insomnia and couldn’t fall back asleep until 5a.  I could have just gone straight to the gym but I had a big busy day at work and I would have been completely non-functioning.

Two weeks ago I was so energized and on track with my training.  I believed that knowing that the race was so close would definitely be motivation to keep me going during the last few weeks… but honestly, it hasn’t.  I still know I need to get my workouts done in order to make it to the finish, but I’m having serious motivation issues and am feeling like I have so much less energy than I used to.  Maybe it’s because I’m used to training for four months at a time, particularly for marathons, and this extra month (since it’s a five month training plan) is just more mentally tough for me to tackle.  Frustrating.

Additionally work is getting really busy and it doesn’t help that my clinic goes live the week before the race, and the busiest day will be the third day, Thursday Sept 20th, and it’s the day before I leave.  Between the stress at work and stressing about the work outs, I’m pretty darn stressed.  I really hope that the insomnia from worry last night won’t be a regular occurrence because I will be a mess come race day 😦

I did muster up the energy after work to get my 20 mile ride done followed by a short 2 mile run, but it was far from spectacular.  I’m really trying to go back to the reason why I decided to sign up for this race, because right now it just isn’t any fun to train, but at one point it was, I just need to figure out how to get back to that place, and quickly!!  Perhaps after getting some good sleep tonight I’ll feel recharged and ready to take on the last tiny bit of my training schedule.

I promise my next post will have more than just a picture of a rainy day…..

Until then…goodnight!