Weekend Recap

My weekend was filled to the brim!

After work on Friday, I raced over to the salon for an early hair appointment. I'm back to being a brunette! Well, close to be a brunette. My hair doesn't seem to ever get as dark as I want it and it fades fast, but at least the gray is covered! I really need to start using a real camera.

I have not yet mastered taking pics of myself.

Saturday morning started very early with my alarm going off at 3:50 AM for a group run on the other side of the world. Our NYC Team Chances training doesn't officially start until June 20th, but the team running the Rock 'n' Roll San Diego is just getting in their last long run, so we were invited to join up with them.

I left at 4:20 and made it to Pecos Park right on time. While I was waiting for Tara to arrive, I locked my keys and cell phone in the car. I was about to have a melt down and skip the run because I was freaking out over the situation.

This is where Tara and I compliment each other. I get us to races on time and make sure we register for events before they sell out and she's good at being chill when my neuroses begin to get the better of me. So we ended up heading out anyway, which was good because everything was fine in the end and there was no reason to totally freak out. It's not like it's the first time I've locked my keys in the car, but we were at a park on the edge of town and I was a little worried about AAA being able to find us. Tara thought we should call when we were on our last mile and it turned out to be the least amount of time I've ever had to wait for AAA.

Tara gets a prize for being a smarty pants.  (source)

Anyway, by this time we were way behind the rest of the pack - which is where we would be anyway due to our less than impressive speed - so we set off on our own.

I've been killing myself trying to get faster and then fatiguing after only 3 or 4 miles. Well, Tara did some research (and this was confirmed by our new coach!) and it turns out that you have to go slower to get faster.

I haven't done enough research to know the ins and outs of the theory, but we went with Tara's heart rate and kept ourselves under a HR of 150. Wow, was that slow! We were slogging along at 15 mi/min pace and it was ridiculously slow, even for us. It took an hour and a half just to go 6 miles, but at the end, I felt great. It didn't even feel like I had been out running. My legs weren't tired or achy. Susan, our coach, said we'd startt ot see a difference in about 4 to 6 weeks. I can't wait to see how we progress!

Of course, I went last night to get a HR monitor to go with my Garmin.

I'm excited to take this out for a spin! I need to do some more research first and see where my HR should be.

Last night we took my cousin out for her birthday to Saddle Ranch in Old Town Scottsdale.

(source)

I usually hate going down to Old Town because, honestly, the people are ridiculous and pretentious. It's stereotypical Scottsdale. But I had fun last night and the food was awesome.

My cousin ordered a HUGE Hurricane...

And we may or may not have had a gigantic bowl of cotton candy.

This stuff is like crack.

My Sunday has been like most Sundays. I rode my horse and then went for breakfast with the barn girls, a tradition going on for years now. I spent the rest of the day working at the barn (Sundays at the barn suck. A lot.) and then came home with the intention of moving the rest of my stuff from my mom's house back to my house (my house was being remodeled), but now I'm feeling like I might be getting sick, which is going to be a crappy thing when I have a race in 2 weeks.

Sadly, I missed the AZ blogger meet up. I just had too much on my plate this weekend. I definitely plan to go to the next one when I have more time to juggle my schedule. Not to mention feeling a little under the weather.

I'm planning on going out for a run tonight when it cools down some, but only if I'm feeling okay. Hope everyone had a nice weekend!

Oh! I almost forgot!

A very big CONGRATULATIONS to MELANIE for running her first ever half marathon today! Great job!