Just gotta get out-just gotta get right outta here

So Saturday I missed updating this because it was my aunt's 60th birthday, which meant a surprise party. Which meant booze and dancing. Though not for me. (Well, a little dancing...)

It also meant having a family friend ask me, "how did you get such a great body?"

To which I replied, "well, I train 3 or 4 hours almost every day, so it damn well better be decent."

And then I promised to take her running some weekend. Flattery will get you everywhere.

But my run that afternoon was less than fantastic. It started out great- warm enough for sleeveless! But about 4 miles in, my stomach sounded pretty rumble-y. "OK, Bull's Island is up ahead, I'll stop and use their bathroom," I thought.

After that stop, everything seemed to be in working order... not. 5 minutes up the road, I said, "Dad, we gotta turn around." Back to Bull's we ran (well, he biked) and barely made it. After that, it was great.

Probably my best run to date, and felt pretty stellar at the end, speeding up quite a bit for the last mile. A little crampy after, but I think I needed to drink more on the run, but with the state of my stomach, I figured it was better to wait til we were done, rather than risk another "incident."

Anyway, fast forward to today... I meant to get up and ride 35 miles before I met the team, but when I tried to wake up, I felt dead, so I figured an extra hour of sleep was a smart idea. Still got to Frenchtown well before the team, which was good since it gave me time to eat and digest a bagel in the coffeeshop where I meet them. Also, a chance to have two men over the age of 80 tell me that I'm "gorgeous."

The team rode in, hilarity ensued, and we headed out 30 min later, only to be stopped by a guy wanting a picture of us. We posed and smiled, but he told us to "look dead." Hmm... I guess he wanted to pretend we were beat after a long ride, but the problem is, we all usually look pretty psyched when we finish long rides! So our smiles stifled, we assumed tragic guises for the camera, silently snickering the whole time.

On the road!

I had such a great time riding with the guys (and one other girl.) There was a Bohemian Rhapsody sing-a-long that was just fantastic (hence this post's title). Unlike last week where I felt like I was slowing people down, I managed to stay with the pack the entire time without making a huge effort. There was a minor incident involving a huge work truck toting a flatbed trailer that almost hit into me and blocked me out, but a push from Ken as soon as the space between the truck and the guardrail opened up to accomodate me, I buzzed through and caught up with the bike. Afterwards, Ken told me I did a great job, and I think I may have actually "glowed from praise." Or at least that's how it felt.

I even stuck with them a couple miles longer than last time, hitting a big hill and getting about 2.5 miles up before I headed back to Stockton to meet dad. In Stockton, I called him and told him to meet me in Frenchtown, planning to ride there, then Frenchtown-Stockton-Frenchtown again, bringing the total mileage to around 100 miles. Unfortunately, I didn't acount for the RIDICULOUS headwind that blasted me the entire way to Frenchtown. (I know in Bohemian Rhapsody there's the line, "Anyway the wind blows,doesnt really matter to me," but in this case it mattered very much!) I was pretty beat, and told Dad we should start in Stockton and ride to Frnechtown, that way we'd do the hard part of the ride first, instead of the easy downhill tailwind-aided segment. So we got to Stockton and headed out against the gusts of wind. We got about 5 miles before Dad was ready to call it quits because of the wind. It was just such an uphill battle. Honestly, I didn't really mind all that much- the wind was taking it out of me and I was starting to get cold because of it.

So in total, I only made it about 85 miles instead of 100, but considering 15 of them were seriously uphill, 18 were moderate hills, and 40 or so were riding into a severe headwind, I don't feel too bad about it.

Also, it's crazy how many people talk to me when I'm wearing the Rutgers kit. People that ignored me in my tri gear (I'm old school- gross tshirts and bathing suit bottoms are where it's at for me training int he summer!) are all of a sudden super friendly and chatting. And I can't count the number of people that have wished me luck this season!

I feel surprisingly good, not at all sore and not even particularly tired. My body is really starting to adjust to this long run/long ride business!

I'm starting to get really nervous about the marathon, but I'm not too worried. If I finish, I'm happy. Honestly, the bike team and racing is more important to me than the marathon, so if I do poorly in that, it's primarily because I haven't been focusing on the running as much as the biking lately.

Intensity weeks start on Monday. I'm expecting to see some pretty stellar improvements in my biking! But in the meantime, tomorrow will bring my first tutoring job of the semester, a breakfast meeting with my internship director, and of course, my recovery swim with Don- and I have a feeling that by tomorrow night, I'm going to be needing it!