Monday

Cora processing sights/sounds of Bedford Half or figuring out why she has to wear that hat

Good morning! Another 10 miler is calling my name, so, once again, a fairly quick post. I am ready for Ironman to happen. I want to get back to normal life and routines, including more relaxed blogging. This is the last week of hard training for me. Up next: taper!

The weekend was good! I went out Friday morning, even though it was threatening rain, and got 10 miles. They were not fast, but when it was over, they were done. See how profound I am? It was a bit misty and very humid and very dark on Friday morning. That coupled with the 100 mile ride on Thursday made it easy to go slow.

Saturday was the Bedford Half marathon. I was a bike escort, and for lots of reasons, I decided to escort the 2nd male. It ended up being a former student of mine for Oakland City U, Kyle Stansbury. I love that kid. He is such a good runner.

He/we toured the course in 1:13:xx. I felt useful out there, moving 5K walkers over and stopping a couple of crazy cars. It was a great experience all the way around. The Bedford Half was amazing. The Galloways and gang did an amazing job. Tim the Elder nearly worked himself to death in the process, but it resulted in a great event for our area.

Ben and Lester both ran the half. Ben wasn't super trained for it, but I am so proud he ran. In the end he broke 2 hours and won an award. Lester was also light on miles but ran an impressive 1:33:xx. It's a challenging course, so those times are really good. Another friend, John H (not Iron John H) ran his first half and had a great run! I loved watching everyone finish well.

I rode around enough on Saturday to get 20 (slow) miles on my bike, which was fine. It was very cold and windy. I was glad to come home and work in my office all Saturday afternoon.

After church yesterday, Brent V took me out to Crane for a swim. Talk about cold - wow! We agreed if the sun had been out it would have been much better. Instead it sprinkled from time to time. It was good to get a mile + in the books though. I'm not sure how many more outdoors swims we can have if the water temp keeps dropping?

This week I am going to take what I can get. My main priority is swimming, which will begin tonight in the pool, and running my last 20 miler. I really would like to get another 100 mile ride in, but the weather may nix that. At this point there is no point in doing something too risky that could lead to a crash.

OK, this turned out longer than I thought. Thanks for stopping by. Time to hit the (dark) streets of Mitchell!