Something Good in Between Rain Drops

I have never seen so much rain!!! My backyard is a sponge. You sink into about an inch of water stepping into the grass. Needless to say Mobi won't go anywhere near it and his been walking along the edges of the yard (Mobi really needs to have his own post one day). I had to work all weekend, which kind of sucked, but I have to say that I couldn't have picked a better weekend to be stuck at work. If I hadn't been working, I probably would have been sitting on my ass, watching the World Cup, and eating my way through the weekend. So maybe it was a good thing - we really did get through a lot.

I tried to squeeze my workouts in between working a full day and the rain. I figured that I might have a shot of getting out a little early on Sunday, so I saved my brick for then. Which meant that I headed over to the pool around 5:30 pm for a Saturday night swim. I know, lame. There were a few other people there, but after about 15 minutes, I was alone and in the rain. I left work with a headache and wasn't expecting to make it through my swim. But there was something about being in the pool by myself on such a dreary day that made me want to swim. Besides, what else was I going to do being that I have such an exciting social life (Matt and I ended up watching a movie, which is probably what we would have done had I not had to work). My headache went away and I had a really good swim.

Sunday was much of the same. Work. Rain. Rain. More rain. Work. And so on...I didn't get to leave as early as I thought and ended up getting home around 4:30 or so. Technically my workout should have been something like a 2.5 hr ride and then an hour run. Technically the timing of that would have worked out. But I move a little slower through "transitions" when I'm at home. It took me a while to get set up on the trainer - I never thought I'd be on the trainer in June! I got stuck in the storm on Thursday (really bad idea!) and had to clean my bike off before it came back into the house. I had to get a movie set up, get water, get food, etc. So I didn't start riding until around 5. The movie ended after 90 minutes. I decided to call it good and try and get in part of my run. With two races around the corner, the brick seemed more important than a long ride. Surprisingly it was still raining. And it was 6:30. Anyone in their right mind would have been jumping at the opportunity to go out for a run. You can sense my lack of motivation here, but you probably can't blame me, especially if you were in town this weekend and lived through The Weekend of Sogginess. I dragged myself out the door. I realized once I was outside that I had forgotten my iPod, but I had a feeling if I went back inside to get it, I wouldn't be coming back outside, especially having felt the conditions. I also had to keep my Garmin under my sleeve because I was worried about that water (I've had to send a Garmin back before because of water getting in under the glass). My sleeve was kind of tight and it would be difficult to keep checking the time. So I decided, well, I have no music, I might as well have no watch either. I decided to try and do the run in what I thought was a mid-Z3 pace and would see how well I did when I finished. I took off and by the time I got to the end of the block (about 6 houses), I realized that I felt pretty good (possibly due to being cooped up all weekend at work). I settled into what I felt was my desired pace and just ran. Even the hills didn't seem that bad. 5.2 miles later I was back. And soaking wet. When I finally checked my watch I saw that I was right where I thought I was, averaging 149 bpm, and just slightly slower than my BB pace (more proof that I had a crappy BB). I sort of surprised myself with this and it turned the weekend around. Though I didn't get to do much over the weekend, I still managed to end it on a really strong note. I'm actually starting to feel prepared for racing the next two weekends (note that I said starting to feel prepared...not there just yet).