One weekend in August

found this in the drafts ...

My mother has tiny, tiny feet and she claims that they used to be smaller - that while she was pregnant with me, her they grew half a size. Right before I graduated from grad school my feet grew half a size. And I assure you I was not pregnant. This leads me to believe that her feet would have grown that year regardless.

This summer, I feel like I've been nesting. I've done my share of travelling but sometimes, when Friday rolls around, I just want to relax, eat sushi, watch Friday Night Lights and follow that up with a mellow weekend at home enjoying August in the city with half the population at the beach. I can still assure you I'm not pregnant which makes me wonder if sometimes everyone needs to nest, regroup and then emerge back into the craziness.

Anyway, this nesting (or, if you don't buy into my theories above, staying at home and being anti-social) has left me with plenty of weekend time for training which is good because I have a half IM coming up. Two weekends ago I had volunteered to lead our club's less aggressive ride and woke up in plenty of time to pump up my tires and fill up my bottles. Plenty of time until the tire valve broke and I wound up needing to do a quick tire change and, unfortunately for me, "quick tire change" isn't really in my repertoire. I notified the group to head out without me - they offered to come help me, but I was too frazzled and knew that there probably weren't any less aggressive people there waiting to be led - and I took my time tire changing and left about 30 minutes late. This would have been fine but somewhere in the madness I ate like half a granola bar for my entire pre-long ride breakfast. If you've ever wondered if the pre-race/ride meal is really important, I'm here to tell you that it is!

I was rather starving in the middle of my ride (at which point I hate some pretzels) and in the middle of my run (at which point I stopped running and went home and inhaled some eggs and waffles) but I did get in a 4 hour ride 25 minute run all solo and was quite proud of myself. The first long, long solo ride of the year always freaks me out a bit and this year, this was the long, long solo ride. After eating I rested and headed down to the beach to meet some friends (b/c nesting or not you can't be reclusive all the time) and amazed them with the amount of food I ate before I declared myself comfortably full. I then told them about my 60 mile ride/2+ mile run and I think they found that more amazing then the post ride food.

After a fun night out I got up the next day, ate some breakfast (having learned my lesson) and headed out for a run. I told my friends I'd be gone for awhile but didn't let on as to distance. Pretty much as soon as I left it started pouring but it was kind of nice because it scared all of the people away and I had the roads to myself and I ran and ran and ran and jumped through puddles and wrapped my iphone in a garbage bag which kept it dry for 14 miles! And with that marathon training commenced.

Probably as close to the perfect combination of reclusive athleticism and summer fun as I'm going to get ...