I love the fall. Wait, it's not fall?!

The rain has been a real downer and on top of that, it’s been freakin cold outside. I thought we were nearing the end of June but maybe I have my months mixed up. What pumps me up more for some long bike rides this weekend is, you got it, some more rain…SO EXCITED!

This past week, Justin and I decided to opt-out of the long run and do a track workout. We finally got to calibrate our foot pods, too! We’ve been training this entire winter and spring as well as raced our first two races of the season without the foot pod and I have to say, it was really nice not knowing my pace. It takes the stress of “how fast am I going?” and the distraction of checking your watch every few minutes out of the picture. I’ve run some great paces without even knowing it at the time.

We did separate workouts. I did 6 X 800 meters at 5K pace with a 400 meter float at marathon pace. Justin did a more “advanced” workout of 800/1600/3200/1600/800 as 800 at 5K pace, 1600 at 10K pace and 3200 at marathon pace. Justin got some nasty blisters that aren’t going away from the race last weekend so he was only able to make it to his 3200 mark before he had to stop. I had to take short breathers and gulp down water between each of my sets, too! In the end, we were really surprised by our times – I paced about a 6:20 5K and 7:20 marathon and was able to hold them throughout all the sets. Justin held an even faster pace (but I’m not sure exactly what his numbers were). We’re hoping that throwing in a couple of these every now and then for the rest of training will help us prepare for our run at LP and beyond.

Next weekend we’re heading out to LP with Joey & group to do some serious training on the course! I’m nervous to see how I hold up – will it give me confidence or leave me shaking with fear? This should be a true test to whether we’ll be ready come July 26^th. Should be fun.