Saturday, May 30, 2009

4 weddings and a...Bear?

The week has been great! Weather was outstanding, good entertainment was had, and I had a first encounter with...(you'll have to read ahead)...

It's crazy to me how the body responds to A)rest and (B)massage. I felt 100% on Tuesday, like wicked, sweet, awesome, the whole works. Then I ran super easy on the sea wall the next morning and I felt sooo tired, slow and run down. My heart rate was high for the pace I was going and it just felt so weird to me. How can you feel so incredibly good one day and crappy the next? That evening I tried to go for run # 2. Mainly because the weather was wonderful outside and I wanted to put some more time in that day. This run however, was even crappier than the first! I ran about 53 minutes but I could hardly run any of the hills because my legs had nothing left in them. When I was contemplating the 2nd run, I was already feeling a bit tired but when the sun is shining, it's hard to say no. I need to learn that it's good to sit in the sun and...read a book...go for a walk...ride a bike...etc.

The next day I decided to take off and have a much needed massage. For some reason, it's the one thing that cures me. It puts the spring back in my stride and fills my legs with energy. I had a nice relaxing day and I thoroughly enjoyed the down time reading my new book, Nancy Clark' Nutrition for Endurance Athletes. Ladies, I hope you are all getting enough Calcium!

The next morning (Friday)I worked early. I went to meet my client @ 6am at the gym I independently train out of. I have only been training out of there for a month now and it will be another month or so before I get my own key. I had this fear that one of these days I was going to show up at the facility and no one was going to be there to let me in. Well, it finally happened! My client and I were waiting until 6:10 doing an outside warm-up, and no one showed. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it forced me to challenge myself. What the hell I was going to do with not one single piece of equipment? All you have is the equipment of life! It's amazing what you can do with a single bench. You can pretty much do an entire whole body workout and a butt kicking one at that.

Directly after that I went to the trails to sneak a quick run in before I went to my 9am shift at Tommy's. I only had about an hour to get to the trail, run, and get home. I felt 100% better this day today than I did on Wednesday. It was nuts, I had all my energy back and I decided to just let my body do what it was going to do. I wasn't taking it easy, and I wasn't going really hard, I was somewhere perfectly in between. I love running!

That afternoon Peter and I went to our favorite new climbing spot. We were meeting 2 friends at the Crag. We had just walked past the Lynn Headwaters parking lot and were walking toward the bridge when we saw these 4 people waving incessantly. They looked like they were waving excitedly at a friend but after 20 seconds or so of this wild waving I realized that they were trying to tell us (in their best mime) that there was a giant bear over to our left trying to get into a bear proof garbage bin. HOLY SHIT!!!!! The thing was HUGEEEEE. I have never seen a live bear in the wild before! I am not too sure how, but I haven't and was pretty happy about that. There was a couple behind us with 2 dogs and they told me to stick with them. We stood there for a bit and Peter decided he was going to walk back behind the porta potties on the right (out of bear view) and get on the otherside of the bear, making it a little more safe to cross the bridge. He started walking and told me to follow but I was so bear stricken with fear that I just stood there quietly with the 2 dogs. If the bear could see me at all, and it was to see me move, I thought for sure it was going to come eat me! At this point Peter had already gone around the potties, realized I was not following him, and came back to try and get me one more time. After about 20 seconds, I decided to make my move. I was so freaked out but we made it around safely and the bear didn't even flinch. It was way to preoccupied with getting whatever food there was in that garbage bin.

Now that we were safely out of harms way we made our way to "Sully's Hangout". I got in 2 really good climbs. I tackled a new one that was extremely challenging for me. Pete later told me he was very impressed because he didn't think I had it in me to try so hard (in reference to climbing). It wasn't my smoothest climb and I am pretty sure Pete directed me the entire way but I made it to the top and that's all that matters. I have lot's of time to work on my smooth transitions. Friday nights will no longer be spent watching movies, rather, we'll be climbing!

This weekend is jam packed with events. Today I am going to my cousins wedding and tomorrow is Iron Knee 25km. Hopefully I can behave enough to have some energy at the start line but I'll have to play that one by ear.

Alright, enjoy the weekend runs and see you in the trails!

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