Fall's arrival.....zzzzzzz.

As I headed out this past Thursday morning for a bike ride, the temperature gauge said it was about 55 degrees outside. You could tell fall was on its way. To me there is a certain smell to autumn, a crispness to the air that's hard to define. I was wearing bike shorts and my Ride to Cure Diabetes jersey, and once on the bike, it was downright chilly. It might be time to break down and buy some arm warmers! On my first two solo laps around West Creek, I saw a group of deer grazing close to the edge of the woods.

My friend Rab joined me and we headed out to Goochland for a 40ish mile loop. Since he hadn't ridden out there, I picked a route that would be easy for me to follow, but I forgot how many hills were on that course. Rab sets a pretty good pace, one where I'm always working hard to stay on his tail especially on the hills. I am learning that those long training sessions take a lot out of me, and I feel their effects for days, especially when combined with missed meals or snacks. Most of the roads we were on were pretty empty--up to the main drag back toward West Creek. I think there are several quarries or something along that portion of road, and we got blown around by many many dump trucks whizzing by. I finished up 50 miles by 11am, and as Rab left to go to work, I was eating my lunch and trying to gear up for another 50 by myself.

No sooner had I broken out my peanut butter sandwich, than I was overcome by exhaustion. I was so tired. I decided to sit down in my car, and I just leaned my head back to close my eyes for just a minute and fell fast asleep for over 20 minutes! After I woke up, I gulped down the rest of my lunch, reloaded my water bottles, and got back on the bike. I made it another 10 miles before my body was saying it was done--go home and go back to bed now! So that's what I did.

Friday afternoon Joey went to play with a friend after school and Maddy had dance team try-outs, so I was able to get in the pool for an hour. At the Y, all lanes in the lap pool except one were taken up by older gentlemen swimming really slowly. Surpise! Rab was in the other one, grinding out a speedy 1000m main set. I joined him in his lane and tried to count how many times he lapped me (too many!) while I swam the first half of my steady 2600m. As he was leaving, Rab commented that I'd be a lot faster if I did flip turns. Apparently Mr. Collegiate Swimmer doesn't realize that real triathletes don't do flip turns. After that I was thinking that I am so going to get my ass kicked by Jen at training camp in February.

Friday evening Joe and I had a fun dinner date with 5 other couples to celebrate my dear friend Lynn's birthday. At the restaurant, I tried to be good considering my 20 mile long run workout on tap for Saturday morning by limiting my wine intake to 2 glasses. Yet after dinner, we decided that the party needed to keep going, so most came back to chez Oliver for more wine and games of pool. We called it a night at 2am. Needless to say, I was not up in time to make our 6am start at Maramarc. After a pretty lazy day of recovery and cotillion shopping with Maddy, Lynn joined me this morning for all 20 miles of my run. It was another blessedly cool morning, but when we finished at 1pm it was close to 80 degrees. Brunch at Boychick's deli never tasted so good!

Tonight I'm going to bed at 8pm.