Phew!  This was a busy weekend, and most of it wasn’t related to training!

Friday night I met up with some of the ladies in the tri club for dinner at Mai Lee, a Vietnamese restaurant near my house.  I don’t know how I’ve managed to not eat there for as long as I have, the food was delicious!  I ordered a shrimp and vegetables stir-fry dish, which was really good, but based on some of the dishes other people ordered, I plan to go back this week and order one of their soups as take out because I was having food envy 🙂  I’m not sure how time flew, but after arriving at 7 and eating, before I knew it, it was 10:30p!  A much later night than I had planned for, but had a great time.

Saturday I was up at 6 and out the door by 6:15 to head to a local 4 mile race to volunteer (ok, I didn’t think it was local because it was 45 minutes away!  I’m so used to everything being within 15 minutes of me :)) I was working packet pickup/registration, which was much more amusing than I thought it would be.  There were some other funny situations that I won’t bore you with (you probably had to have been there at the time to find it funny anyways), but as always, volunteering was a lot of fun.  After the race started, my duties were over and I headed back home to change and run 4 miles at the gym.  Later JMR came over to pick me up for dinner and on our way we stopped by the packet pick up for the 5k we were running the next day.  I had signed us up for the race as something fun for us to do, especially because it was valentine’s day themed race, appropriately called, ‘Run for the Chocolate’.  All finishers receive a chocolate medal and also a cup of hot cocoa, so it sounded like a fun idea!…

Rainy view from my car while waiting for the race to start

…If it wasn’t freezing and pouring down rain the morning of the race.  We were debating even heading down to the race as for a while it was lightning and thundering, but after that died down, we got into the car and headed downtown.  The race was located in an area I wasn’t familiar with, and after going down a one-way street the wrong way (yeah,yeah, I was driving) and getting very lost, we finally made it to the race with ten minutes to spare.  Although I doubt we would have lined up early anyways because there wasn’t anywhere with shelter to avoid the rain, so most people were still in their cars until the last couple of minutes before the race.

When the gun went off, we jogged over the timing mat and started at a pretty good pace, around 9 min/mile, and continued at that pace for a bit while we weaved around people (we started in the back).  And then it happened.  JMR’s left shoelace came untied.  We pulled over to the side, and he tied and then double-knotted his shoelaces.  Then we were off again! Eventually we settled into a 9:30/9:45 min pace, and kept at that for the first 1.5 miles.  I was surprised to see that during the first 1.5 miles FIVE other people with untied shoes?!?!  Do shoes come untied more easily in the rain?  Did everyone just decide to tie their shoes loosely that morning? Regardless, we hit the 2 mile mark around a 10 minute pace and then it happened again.  JMR’s right shoe-lace came untied.  He tried to stop and re-tie and double-knot, but his hands were so cold it was like watching someone attempt to double knot their shoes in slow motion.  Finally he gave up and it just looked like one big knot and we took off…until it happened again…not once, but two more times.  It was becoming comical at this point.  I vowed that after this race, JMR would have to be officially checked for double knotted shoes before starting a race.  Soon we could hear the announcer at the finish shouting out encouragements, finally we were in the home stretch, and before I knew it, we were crossing the finish line!

Between the rain, wind and lots of shoe-tying, it was not exactly our fastest 5k, but we finished it together!  I’m actually pretty impressed that we only had one brief walk break (and four shoe-tie stops) during the whole run, especially since JMR hasn’t run more than a couple of miles in eight months.  Yeah, perhaps this was a little lofty of a ‘fun’ outing for us that I chose, but JMR’s fit, so I figured he could do it, and finish it we did!

After the race we headed right back to the car as it was still raining and freezing (especially now that we had stopped running), and skipped the chocolate medals and hot cocoa because the lines were so long.  After showering and putting on dry warm clothes, we headed to a local Mexican restaurant for brunch, followed by watching golf on tv (I took a nap).

That evening I headed to a local bike shop, Big Shark, with my bike, Lola, to take an Intermediate bike maintenance class.  Big Shark had offered a few special classes just for tri club members, so I had signed up with 7 other tri club members for that evening.  I had regretted choosing a Sunday evening because I was dragging from getting up early for the race, but figured it would be worth it because I would learn a lot about my bike.  Boy was I right!  We learned a lot!  Derailers, Chains, Breaks, Cables…ohmy!  I’m still not sure if I could completely fix it if I had an issue with one of those things, but now I know a lot more about them and could at least troubleshoot the problem 🙂  By 7:30 (the class went from 5-8p), my brain was getting fuzzy from information overload.  Finally at 8p, we packed up our bikes and headed across the street for dinner and drinks at Pi, a pizzeria.  It was a late night for a Sunday, and I didn’t get home until 10:30, but had a great time in the bike class and an even better time hanging out with everyone afterwards at Pi (and eating delicious deep dish pizza).

Yesterday I had PT in the am, then work, followed by laundry when I got home (and had leftover Pi for dinner, yum!), and was in bed by 9p!  Now I’m off for a busy day at work followed by a swim at the Y – ha, my second swim of the year (I didn’t even bother getting into the pool while I was getting over being sick…being congested and swimming sounded downright horrible).

Happy Tuesday!