Is it really the end of October???

Happy end of October everyone.  I can’t believe the year is coming to a close.  I’ve mentioned before that there are a few babies due in my world before the year ends….Kiri is having her 2^nd little boy and Heather will be welcoming her 2^nd baby (gender TBD). 

I’m thrilled to report that I hit my 1^st weight loss goal last week. In 7.5 weeks I dropped 18lbs!!  I am now down a grand total of 26lbs and sooooo happy.  I go back for my next check-in on the 29^th and will get my next 4 weeks of meal plans before hitting the maintenance phase for a few months.  

Thanks for carrying me another 14 miles legs!

Training this past weekend was awesome.  Keith & I ventured out for 67 miles on our bikes and enjoyed the fabulous weather and challenging rollers we encountered.  We spent a portion of the ride on the OilMan course and felt we did pretty darn well.   On Saturday we have our last long ride prior to the race and we’ll one again venture up to Montgomery so we can tackle the back part of the race course.  On Sunday I had a 14 mile run to do and was actually looking forward to it all week.  Once again, I left my place and decided to run to the front of The Woodlands where Keith would pick me up.  My Garmin died 3 miles into the run which really sucked but I had an extra watch on so I was good.  For those of you familiar w/ The Woodlands, I live near the Starbucks in the back (by Wal-Mart) so I ran up Terramont to Branch Crossing, over to Sterling Ridge and then on to Lake Woodlands.  From there, I turned off on the Ironman Texas run course.  When I made it to South Shore Park, I stopped to refill all my bottles (the news reported 96% humidity) as I was parched.  I looked out at the water and got so excited knowing I would be swimming in that nasty mess in just 7 months!  I continued on my run and felt awesome!!  I ran into Market Street and picked up Hannah who was running my last mile with me.  While we ran, Keith & Emily enjoyed their coffee and worked on a project Emily had.  Hannah & I had a quick loop around the Waterway area and then headed back into Market Street.  I don’t know why she wouldn’t want to run the whole 14 with me!!!  

My lower back had been giving me some issues on & off the past few weeks.  I decided I needed to go get a massage before it got any worse.  While I knew I would benefit from a deep tissue massage, I also knew that there was probably no way I could handle that kind of pain.  Before going in, I would have to stretch a solid 20 minutes before I could even touch my toes.  I’m happy to report, I’m touching my toes again!  It turned out that while my lower back was in fact tight, the real culprits were my glutes.  I have a sizeable bruise on one of my butt cheeks right now thanks to the man-handling my backside required.  Needless to say, I don’t plan on letting it get this bad again.  Hey, I was just happy there were muscles underneath that big ‘ole bootie!!

That’s all I have for you.  I’m starting to taper this week so am expecting a little bit of madness to set in.   You know when you refer to your long run as “only” 6 miles, you are brainwashed. 

Have a great, great week ahead!