Happy HUMP DAY friends! Only 2 more days until the long weekend and an extra day of solid training. Woohoo!! Last week was another successful training week for me and I am feeling pretty good about the Xterra race next Sunday. Thankfully sprint distances don’t make me too nervous anymore 🙂

The girls and I switched up our routine a bit this weekend but still got some great training in. We usually ride on Saturday mornings, but Kelly and Marjan wanted to hike Mt. Baldy and I had a birthday brunch to go to. Instead, I did a fast fartlek run on the Santa Ana river trail. The trail is long, flat, and perfect for this kind of workout. I managed to run 6 miles with an average pace of 7:30 which made me do a happy dance. I have been trying to build my pace back up for a while now…success at last.

I have been having some issues with my ankles and achilles when I run, but I just got the Brooks Launch 3’s and they seem to be doing the trick. I had happy ankles for this run.

On Sunday the 3 of us met up to do a long ride on the same trail that I ran on. The plan was to do a 50 mile ride with a 25 mile time trial using the pace line workout that I posted last time in Trail Happy. We managed to get in about 15 fast miles and then tragedy struck…

I was not expecting to attend a funeral this weekend. But, when a directionally challenged squirrel charges your path while you are cycling at full speed there is not much you can do besides make him a cross, lay down some flowers, and leave him a Mocha GU for squirrel heaven 😦 He ran in front of me, I went over him and then he turned around and ran under Marjan’s wheels as well!! At least we didn’t have to put him out of his misery since he was already departed by the time we turned around and found him on the side of the trail. Poor little guy…we felt so bad!  

Besides the traumatic squirrel encounter and the awful head winds it was a great ride and I was feeling good considering I haven’t ridden 50 miles in a while.

After the ride we hightailed it over to REI for their 30% off Anniversary sale. It was a zoo. There were at least 50 people in the checkout line when we walked in. But, we all found some stuff we needed/wanted and the lines moved quickly. I apparently had some points that I hadn’t redeemed so when I checked out they actually gave ME money!!! How awesome is that! I LOVE REI 🙂 

Then I ate pretty much this entire thing while I shopped for groceries at Wholesome Choice Market….OMG so good!!!! How I ended up at this market is a whole nuther story that involves Marjan losing her car keys for 6 hours inside REI 😉

Anyway, I am looking forward to getting back on the trails this weekend and having a great last training weekend before Xterra.

How is your Hump Day going?

Any exciting plans for Memorial Day weekend?