A Day of Surprises

I enjoyed having the day off today. Normally I work Monday and Tuesday together, but it's a nice break right now just doing one day at a time. I don't get nearly as exhausted that way. I took the girls for a walk early this morning and the day was heating up fast. I got an e-mail from Miles, the sports editor at the local paper, who was interested in an article on the Quad Rock, so I got to work on that right away. Nick's in Europe, but I was able to reach Pete who gave me all the information I needed.

I went over to the sauna for 35 minutes and felt pretty good in there. I can tell my tolerance isn't quite what it was last year. Partially because I haven't been doing it, but I also suspect thyroid. It's a fine line, if I want good heat tolerance, I have to make myself get hypo enough, but that comes at a price: gaining weight and poor running performance. It's a trade off for sure. Since this year my priority is not to do any major events in the heat, I'll stick with what I have now.

After the sauna I was pretty wiped out. I drank an S-cap smoothie and worked on the article until I had it basically done, minus some details from Pete and editing about 200 words out. I went for a bike ride along the Spring Creek and Poudre Trails, about 21 miles, easy. I forgot about the big Hewlett Gulch fire up Poudre Canyon, and the smoke was visible above Grey Rock and the foothills north of town. The river is starting to rise a little, but it's low this year.

Then as I was riding back home, I came across this: swarming bees. I've had some experiences with swarming bees around here. One time Allsion Horn and I were running along the ditch near Tavelli Elementary, a million years ago, and we were stuck on the canal bank, with nowhere to go, unless we took a dive in the icky water. The swarm was just high enough and Allison and I are both short enough that we decided to run underneath the swarm. Fortunately we never got stung, but found out later that was really a dumb thing to do. At least we don't have the killer bees here like we did in Arizona. We had a 4 foot honeycomb in our garage rafters from those bees.

After my bike ride I came home, ate lunch, worked on a few things, and took a nap. Then I got ready for my run with Shannon. I had no idea what to expect. I thought I'd struggle with running a faster pace and decided to just go with whatever happened. But once we got out there, I was moving well, even pushing the pace up the hills without realizing it. I managed 8:30 miles for 10 miles. Not bad for a week after my race. I feel like my effort in Iowa was much more mental than physical. My knee felt decent tonight too. I could feel it slightly in the last 3 miles but it's not even what I'd call sore. It's just there.

Not a bad day's work!

This weekend Ed and Dale and I are meeting in Boulder to take Rocket for a test run at Boulder Reservoir and then we'll do a planning session somewhere afterwards. The Double Mick is only a month away!