To start the vacation...

I got up at an ungodly hour to (gasp) run hills. Yes, it is official. I am definitely crazy. I woke up at 4 am, thinking it was 4:45 and that I'd overslept. I didn't realize that it was only 4 am though until I was fully dressed, body glide applied, and in the kitchen getting my breakfast. What can you do at that point but just stay up.

So I ate said breakfast, got my camelbak and nutrition ready, gathered keys, money, ID and the cellphone, and checked my email and looked at Facebook. Then about 4:55 am, I headed out the front door to wait on the porch for Ryan since we were carpooling. I'm a bit of a talker (if you hadn't guessed that already) so I sometimes feel badly for Ryan when we carpool. I talk and talk the poor guys ears off. He's a good listener and always has good things to say too, but I know he's not a morning person and yet I can't control my talking. I'd like to blame it on not getting out that much during the work week and the fact that I work from home, but realistically I talked alot when in the office environment too.

We had to drive about an hour to get where we were meeting up for our 6 mile run that was going to include hill repeats. This is Florida so I didn't think they would be all that bad. Hard of course because the term "hill repeats" literally makes me think that Coach is thinking up new and fun ways to torture us along the way to the Ironman 70.3, even if I know (deep down somewhere) that they are good for us. Hill repeats at 6 am when I've had a hard week and accidentally woken up 1/2 an hour earlier than necessasry is an even more special form of torture.

Little did I know that the hill we were going to repeat was essentially a 45 degree incline (if not more) in a neighborhood in Clermont. I didn't know Florida grew hills like that. And unluckily, I forgot my recoverite at home. Yeah. Not good.

We ran about 1.5 miles out to the hill and when I looked at it, it reminded me of San Francisco. As irony would have it, we were doing this work out with Coach's San Francisco marathon team for Team in Training. Then it we did the hill repeats. The hill itself was a quarter of a mile straight up and then another quarter of a mile straight down. 4 repeats. I got about 1/3 of the way up the 1st time, and about 1/2 way up the 2nd-4th times before I had to walk, and then I would run again when I could part way up the hill (nearer the top, of course). Basically, my heart was pounding, I was out of breath, and my old friend nerve pain had returned. My HR monitor says that at one point my heart rate reached 221. Uh, yeah. Total freak out when I saw that one. Not sure that's what the cardiologist would have envisioned for me. My "max out" rate is 185. Luckily, even with the 221, my average was about 148. I'm certain that this torture was actually good for me.

There was walking involved, as well as sitting and waiting for people to complete their 4 repeats before we jogged the 1.5 miles back to the parking lot. I did what I could with my nerve pain and thought to myself that I hoped we do this again in a few weeks so that I could try to get better at it. And that's when I knew that I must have not been getting enough oxygen to the brain during it all... I was wanting more. Not that day mind you. I may have been able to do it once or twice more, but I definitely didn't want to... especially if I planned on walking later in the day (like I need to for errands).

I ended up walking most of the 1.5 miles back. The nerve pain was a little not so fun after sitting (even though I stretched), but it was ok when I walked. But the mileage got done. Coach ordered us all to have an ice bath, so I took one. Not nearly as cold as I thought it would have been, but I may have had the water a little to hot to begin with before I added the ice. The girls joined me, which was pretty funny. Luckily it was after all of the ice had melted. 20 lbs of ice, plus what we had in the freezer. They were mermaids with me in the "mermaid pool." Talk about happy times.

I'm a bit stiff and have a feeling I may be sore in the morning, but (gasp) hill repeats while torture are rather satisfying once they're done. Yup, I'm certifiable. I don't know who it is that has taken over my brain but they, ahem, almost like running. Quite frightening, and crazy in deed.

The Plot Revealed, Aerodite, and the Run that Wasn't

The last I wrote, the plot regarding an adventure was thickening but nothing seemed to be really moving... other than my discovery that the taxes on airfare overseas made them rather cost prohibitive for a family of 4 that includes 2 children around the age of 3. It would be one thing if they were 12 or some such age where they would actually get something out of a European country, but at the age of 3 it does not matter.

I did some research on flights, hotels, car rentals and the like. Finally after hearing that my sister in law and brother in law had taken an overnight trip without their children for their 10th anniversary, I lost my ability to control my frustration in our long string of conversations that never resulted in a decision. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law are not big travelers, so I guess for whatever reason their hour long trip away from their house for a romantic 2 days was enough for me to lose all sense of reason. But, I didn't yell or nag. I just said that I wanted us to get things settled. I am doing my best to ask directly for what I want these days. So the decision was Trip or no trip, primarily because we needed to get things booked before June 1 if we wanted to be able to get the best out of our world points.

Thanks to a world points misunderstanding on my part, we were able to get all 4 tickets (although not direct flights like I was looking at) for less than our total worldpoints between the two of us. So, we are going to Seattle this October! YAY! The plan is to go to Seattle, see what we can see, hopefully see some family as well since 2 of my uncles and aunts live out there and 1 of my cousins (none of whom have yet to personally meet A&M), and to cross over the border into Canada to see Vancouver. I am rather excited and now have to get the girls their passports and work on the other details of the trip (like which hotel, car rental and such).

And no, in case you're wondering, I did not misspell Aerodite. That is the name of my new bike. She is definitely the goddess of beauty and love BUT she is quite aerodynamic and a dream to ride, thus my tweaking of the spelling of her name so that it perfectly fits. And to think I contemplated calling her Rosa. Much too mundane for my lovely lady! I am completely in love with her. I rode 40 miles on Saturday, which I've never done before, and was pretty darn fast (by my standards) even though I was only using the small gears while I got used to steering in aero, etc. It was wonderful and I could walk afterwards with no problems. My legs weren't nearly as tired and I felt so efficient and fast. I am much more confident that I will be able to do the 56 mile bike (with all its hills) by the September 70.3 now. And I feel so lucky! I would not have been able to buy such a bike for a very long time had I not won it!

After returning from my ride with the rest of the red bike brigade (as named by Missy... and photographed by the same),

we decided that the fam would head to Mr. Darcy's parents in Orange Park so that we could spend time with his parents and attend our niece's 5th birthday party Sunday evening. We got there around 5ish and had dinner, and somewhere I fell asleep afterwards. I felt so terrible that I did but I couldn't help myself. I only woke when Mr. Darcy said he was going to put the girls down for the night. I helped and then went to sleep myself.

The next day we spent with Mr. Darcy's parents and the girls around the house and at their neighborhood pool. Then it was naps for all and on to the birthday party. Angelfish and Ladybug were so well behaved and had a wonderful time, as did we.

As for the run that wasn't, well. This morning's workout as set by my coach was a 60 minute run keeping your heart rate under 135 walking as necessary to accomplish this. So essentially I had to briskly walk 50 of the 60 minutes because anytime I tried to run or jog or barely jog my heart rate went up to 140 or higher (152 being the highest I let it go before walking). Finally, the last 10 minutes of the session I was able to jog at the slowest pace I was capable of producing and my heart rate actually stayed under 135 (although it was 132-134 the entire time and did touch 135 once or twice). FRUSTRATING. I emailed my coach afterwards and she said she did it to show that we need to teach our bodies to be more efficient to keep our heart rate down and she was waiting for the emails to come in from everyone. So, I guess I will be in good company when we meet for our swim workout this evening, but man did I want to run, run, run and all I did was walk, walk, walk (briskly). I guess all I can do is focus on each day at a time and hope to improve along the way.

Speaking of which, the girls were champs in the potty training arena. Ladybug only had 3 accidents the entire weekend, 2 of which were nap time related. Whoo hoo! May the dry pants continue!