Wind and Trainers and Jellybeans - oh my!

Another week closer. Can't believe we can say Ironman is in 3 weeks and 6 days. 3 WEEKS and !!!! It's funny, sometimes I think I'm doing great mentally and then I start another long workout and think otherwise. Thank goodness for friends and family who offer support and encouragement and for training partners to come along for the ride. THANK YOU ALL!!!

The first order of good news is that my dad is doing better. He is home now and working on getting strong. I'll have to write him his own training plan so he can come down to spectate Ironman :) Thank you all for your concern, I and we really appreciate it!

The weekly work outs get done, aren't super long, so I'll leave those out for now. Friday was long ride day. I needed to fit in the run on Saturday for family timing reasons. Couldn't find anyone to ride with, so I took off on my own. Earlier that morning I went on a walk through the neighborhood with the kids and admired the blue skies and calm conditions. I thought of Steve getting out for his ride and hoped he was enjoying it. I hoped the weather would hang in there for me too. It unfortunately did not. The winds picked up and it was cold. I stayed warm enough, but those winds were brutal. Probably not as brutal as SG a few weeks ago with Sarah, but close. I kept thinking "What the heck!? I've done my time with winds, I've already played in this for 100 miles. UHG!!!". I really tried to make the best of it, but it was so hard mentally. I was averaging 13 mph - that's ridiculous! I needed to get these miles in and was now fighting daylight too. I had to find a way to cope. And here it is:
Yep, jumped on the trainer for the remaining 2.5 hours. This was no ordinary trainer ride though. My 9 year old basic mag trainer crapped out last month, but I was determined to get this ride in. I asked my sweet husband to drive down to PowerTri and get me a new one. Yeah, he had just driven the 30 minutes home from AF about an hour earlier, but he packed the kids up and headed back down, grabbed this lovely Kurt Kinetic Fluid Road Machine and rescued me. I kept riding and by the time I got back it was set up for me and ready with only about 10 minutes of down time. Thank You, Thank You babe! I will put this thing to good use for sure! It's so smooth and makes getting workouts in so much easier.
So anyway, got my 6 hours in, finishing at 8:30pm, got in a too short 5 minute transition run and was done. Tried to replenish the glycogen stores, hopped in an ice bath with what limited ice was in the ice maker, pulled on the recovery tights (which I am getting better at btw), and went to bed.

Morning came much too soon, but I was up at 5:30am getting ready to get this run over with. 6:15am Jonathan and Karie and I set out. I failed to realize it would still be very dark by that point, so we had to run the streets for a bit, then ran around Daybreak Lake, and ran the canal roads south almost to Camp Williams then back to 13400 S where our cars were. 22 miles in all! First time running 22 for a training run (ran 21 before the Ogden Marathon last year), and probably the last for this year too :)
It wasn't all that bad, just the first 18 miles :) I was just unmotivated, it was cold and windy and I just wanted to be at home with my family eating lots of warm food. Jonathan and Karie were great motivators though and I plugged along. Those last 4 miles from 18-22 actually felt good. I could "see" and end in sight, and although my legs were heavy and a bit tight, I was able to pick up the pace and finish strong. SUCH a great feeling to be done!

That was of course followed by a recovery drink, warm yummy breakfast, and hefty 20 lbs worth of ice bath.

Before

After

And the bane of my Easter existence:

Happy Easter all!
I hope it was spent with your families reflecting on the things that are most important in life. Carry on!