It's A Whole New Season!

I'm no longer being orientated, woo hoo! I'm out of the 2 week "Orientation" phase of training and have now started the "Preseason". The workouts will start to get a bit longer and I'm assuming a little more intense and precise. The first 2 weeks went great! It was nice to get started on an organized plan and I was able to keep up. The week with the boys went well too. I ended up switching my a.m. and p.m. workouts around so I was home riding in the morning and then swam/ran in the evening. I think I'm starting to notice some positive changes. I've been doing a lot more biking in just these first 2 weeks and I'm starting to feel (and see?) it in my legs. They feel firmer and I think my quads are bigger. That's a good thing, I've always kind of had chicken legs compared to my upper body so maybe I'll become a little more symmetrical.

The boys have been great and on-board with the training thus far. I'm trying to keep them posted on what I'm doing, how long until the race, what it's going to be like, etc. I recently bought a 2nd pair of running shoes identical to the first pair I'm using and will rotate their use. In order to tell them apart and make sure I properly match pair 1 and pair 2 I put initials on each shoe. My first pair has Cs for Conner and the second pair has Ds for Devon. I told the boys it's like they're running with me now and I'll alternate wearing each pair for my run workouts. Devon got a kick out of it when I got home Sunday and said he had a good 6 mile workout. I think Conner was actually a little disappointed when I told him my next run workout was only going to be about 4ish miles. Nope, no competition syndrome going on between these brothers! I'll have to make sure the cumulative miles are somewhat close when it comes time to retire both these pairs. I'll need another pair by the time the race actually gets here so I'll just write everyones' name on that pair, you'll all get to come along on that day's run!


Another fun thing is my "training cookies". Capt Cartwheel gave me a huge baggie full of cookies for a Christmas present. As I was chowing down on them that December night during the car ride home I figured I could eat them all right then and there and really start off my training absolutely needing to workout just to get back to square 1 or I could ration them. My training program is a 36 week program. At that point, I had 40 cookies left (we'll just disregard how many I ate prior to that to get down to that 40). I made a pact with myself, that I'll have just 4 more and from that point on I only get 1 cookie at the end of each week of training, kind of my "reward" for getting through the week. I told this to the boys too (and told them not to eat them if they see them in the freezer!) and Conner came up with a great idea that each week I should eat the smallest one in the bag so I'm left with the biggest one at the end! Thanks Conner, great thinking! So, I'm eating 1 cookie every Sunday night. 2 cookies down, 34 to go. I can hardly wait to eat that last one because it's going to be Sunday, Sept. 11th, right after I cross the finish line!!

Fortunately, the boys' scout schedule is helping us do fun things besides marking shoes and counting cookies. This weekend we get to go to Polar Camp, an all day outside activity day at scout camp in Cannon Falls. Conner and I went 2 years ago and had a great time. This will be Devon's first time and he's really looking forward to it (he was sick last year). I just need to make sure to get my 1:30 bike ride in nice and early that morning because I know I won't want to do it once we get home.