So much for restful weekends!

Well, I have officially kissed sleeping in on the weekends goodbye. Saturday morning I got up at 4:30 to get ready for my 12 mile run. We were starting at Grandview High School, and took the trail up to Longview Lake. It was a little after 6 when we started, and the temperature was OK for the first mile or so, but once the sun came up, it got hot. Fast. Luckilly, the trail had a lot of tree cover, but it was still so humid that it was pretty miserable. By the time we turned around at 6 miles, I was starting to hurt. We slowed our pace down a bit, and took extra time at the aid stations, so we were all able to finish in pretty good shape. Well, as good a shape as you can be in after running 12 miles in 90 degree heat with 95% humidity.

Oh, and side note, Brett Anthony and Merideth Hoenes (from Channel 41) have joined Runners Edge now. But they were anti-social, they took off running together about 15 minutes before the group did without talking to anybody. And when we passed them on the trail going opposite directions after they had turned around, they didn’t say anything to us, even after WE said good morning. That’s just what you do! When you pass other people in the group, you always say good morning, or whatever. So I am not impressed with them. We’re guessing that they are training to run the KC marathon in October so they can do a piece on it for their morning show.

I was pretty wiped out after that, but I knew I wouldn’t want to clean the house on Sunday, so I spent the afternoon doing that. Then we headed to Lawrence for one of the RB’s weddings. It was a good time, but we left around 10 since I had to race the next morning. I knew I didn’t need to be up drinking all night, and the 4 beers that I did have were probably too much as it was! Oh well.

I was NOT looking forward to doing the race when my alarm went off Sunday morning at 5. I wanted to just stay in bed and sleep till noon. I hadn’t even packed my transition bag, and I was just hoping that my kit was actually clean. I hit snooze till about 5:30, then drug my sleepy ass out of bed to get ready. We headed out to Shawnee Mission Park a little after 6, and had to park up by Theatre in the Park and hike a mile down to the marina parking lot. I ran into Cheryl S from DFT on the way down, and chatted with her for a few minutes. By the time I got body marked and got my TA set up, the first wave was about to go off. So Michele, Dan and I headed down to the dock to watch the long course people swim since our heat didn’t start for over an hour.

TriKC had brought Sarah Reinersten in to compete in the race, and we got to see her come out of the water, which was pretty cool. For those that don’t know who she is, she is the only female above the knee amputee to ever complete an Ironman. She completed Kona in 2005, after having to DNF the previous year for missing the bike cut off by 15 minutes. I remember watching both broadcasts and being moved to tears both times. She’s so inspiring, if she can do it on one leg, then I can sure as heck do it on two! Check out her website to read some more about her.

It was finally time to swim over to the beach for the start of the swim, and again, I wasn’t nervous at all. Such a nice change of pace from last year! The swim went ok, I felt pretty good, I just wish I were a little faster. I hate that I’m such a slow swimmer. I had a really slow transition time, but I finally got on my bike and was off. I felt really good on the bike leg. There is a steep, curving downhill just past the dog park that I always ride my breaks on when I’m out there training because I’m afraid I’ll get hit by a car at the bottom of the hill, but I just let it all hang out. It’s so fun going fast! My max speed was 38.6 mph! The last mile or so of the bike loop is pretty much flat, with a gradual downhill, so I hammered it out on that portion and caught up to a guy in a KC Multisport jersey as we were coming around to the end of the first lap. I realized that it was probably going to look like I was drafting, and I didn’t want that as we came through the crowd by the TA, so I pushed it and managed to pass him. He passed me right back, but I made it a point to try to stay with him for the second loop. The bike seemed to go by really fast, and I ended up averaging 17mph, which is really good for me on that course.

As soon as I got off my bike and started running, I felt that 12 miles from the day before! I hadn’t been sore or stiff on the bike, but it was there to bite me in the ass on the run. My legs were just stiff, and they felt totally drained. My right IT band was still kind of sore too, which didn’t help matters any. I tried to keep up my pace as much as possible, and ended up averaging 11:55/mile, even with walking up the dam hill. So not too shabby. About half way through, I heard someone coming up behind me, not running much faster than I was, and when they got next to me, I realized that it was this totally cut guy who looked like he should be blowing by me. I am a slow runner, and this dude looked like he should be running at LEAST 2 min/mile faster than me. But then again, I probably look like I should be faster than I am, so I shouldn’t judge. It was pretty hot by the time I was on the run course, so I developed a pounding headache pretty quickly, and I just wanted to hurry up and get done. It was only a 2.4 mile run, so I just wanted to hurry up and finish it.

I ended up with an overall time of 1:18:11, a 4 minute improvement over my time from last year. Not too bad! Still a lot of room for improvement, but I’m getting there. Today is a much needed rest day, I’ll be back at it tomorrow.