Aaahhhh taper!

Hey guys!! TGIF! Yeehaw!! We've had a lot of rain the past two days, so our temps have cooled down a little, yeah!

It rained off and on Thursday and by the time we got home it was 72, a great improvement over the mid-upper 80's from earlier in the week! The plan was to run right after work.....except Brent had forgotten and left the lights on in the car all afternoon so the battery was dead. Blah. Long story short we both finally made it home and were tired but determined to get our run in. We started out and in short order Brent's foot was bothering him. With two big races coming up he called it quits and headed back home. I trudged on alone. I went through one hilly subdivision and managed to pick off one guy running. I think it bothered his manhood as he looked back at me quickly approaching a million times and then tried to pick up his pace when I approached. As if! =) He was toast and I kept on. As I headed out of that subdivision and towards the middle school I saw a familiar sight - Brent! He had gotten in the car and driven ahead of me with his camera. If I knew his foot was going to bother him and the session was going to turn into a photoshoot I would've worn my black shorts. They're so much more flattering! He took a few action shots and then I was off through a new subdivision. A minute or two later he was there, too! I was still pretty warm but trying not to look TOO dead kept me moving. I looped back past him and headed for the neighborhood park where a family of five was completely blocking the sidewalk. GRRR! The woman looked at me at LEAST 5 times but waited to tell her husband, who was totally putzing around on his bike, to move over right when I was on them. Shocked that anyone might be trying to move rapidly he was like a deer caught in headlights and ended up blocking the whole sidewalk. Moron. I changed direction quickly and gave them death looks as I kept moving towards their two boys on bikes. One of them matched my speed and I thought about sticking my foot out to knock him over. The other one was really nice and stopped completely - causing his smart ass brother to slam into him. Pile up! I told the other kid "thank you" really loudly and kept moving....only to meet Brent one last time! He took some pics of me running past the lone farmhouse left in suburbia (they could sell and make SO much money!). Finally I was headed back home! I was tired and hot and ready for dinner! I managed to pick up the pace and had a final full mile of 8.18, which I was really happy about! Overall I covered 6.4 miles at an avg pace of 8.32. I was pretty happy with that, esp since I did the same course two weeks ago at an average of 8.45. Not a huge difference but I'll take it.

Tomorrow we're just doing 8 miles (yeah taper!). I'm not sure what the weather will be like, probably rainy. It's been raining all day and we even took an after dinner walk in the rain. It started storming at 4 am this morning and kept us up until 5 so there was no way I was taking Pippin this morning, plus it was still storming at 5:30. All we had was thunder, lightning and massive rain, but Pippin's little purple pool is nearly half full! After tomorrow's 8-miler we're having massages. Perfect! We haven't been since December and it's SO overdue! It will be nice to get all the niggles out before Country Music Half next weekend.

That's all the news around here. Have a great weekend and good luck to anyone racing!

Rachel

Exercise-
Mon - 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 50 minutes Crunch Burn n Firm Pilates
Tues - 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 6.3 mile run
Wed - 2/3 mile am walk with Pippin (storms!), 50 mins toning/stretching
Thurs - 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 6.4 mile run
Fri - 1 mile evening walk with Brent and Pips