The Week Before SD

Hello all! Marathon no. 4 is in the books and boy is it a long story, but before I get to the race report, I need to catch up on the week leading up to it when I was a little MIA on the blog.

Saturday morning we met up with the Team for our second and final taper "long" run. I didn't hear my alarm go off so I had to race downtown since my roommates had already left me. I made it just in time and decided to run my frustration out by upping my pace a bit for the hour-long run. I ran most of it with a couple of the coaches which was fun, and we ended up getting in a little over 6 miles. It was a gorgeous day, if a little warm, and the excitement was all a buzz for the race the following weekend.

TNT Summer Season 2010

Gorgeous!

 Running with Marc.

 

Sunday evening I helped my roommate Jordan with her TNT Spaghetti Feed fundraiser being held at our house. My other roommate Sarah and I held one last year during our season and it was quite successful. Since it was Memorial Day weekend a lot of people were out of town but she still made over $200! Not bad for a few hours' work, right?

My lovely artwork : )

 Almost there!

N

Nom nom nom.

 

On Tuesday we had our last "track" practice before San Diego. After a warm-up we split into groups and did four 10 minute intervals, alternating between marathon pace and Swedish relays. As much as I love me some Swedish relays, our groups are usually small and the girls tend to go at such a slow pace that it makes it really hard to even pick up speed as I sprinted to the front and the constant abrupt change of pace was hard on my legs. On our last relay interval, however, we merged with another group making it much easier to sprint along a longer line of people. In the end I did 5.25 miles and felt pretty good throughout.

Wednesday was my last day of work at the deli which was a little bittersweet. I'll miss our amazing sandwiches! That evening I got in my last run for the week with a short 5k around the west campus lagoon, averaging 9:17/mi. I didn't want to push it but my legs felt good so I just let my body dictate the pace. Instead of going out that night to celebrate my roommates 21st birthday at midnight, I had to stay in and finish my final English paper, which didn't happen til 3:30am!

Thursday was Jordan's actual 21st (finally - she skipped a grade so she's a year younger) and I had promised her I would go downtown with her. In the year and a half that I've been legal, I have only gone "DT" as we call it once - I'm just not a fan of it, plus I don't really drink much. But I'm not one to back out of a promise so after trying on literally everything in my closet, I got ready and headed to a friends house to meet up with everyone. After a drink or two we all made our way downtown via party bus and went from one club to the next. With a marathon in a few days I wasn't about to get shwasty, so I limited myself to one drink followed by a glass of water. Like I said before, downtown just isn't really my thing and I was pretty tired, so by 11pm I was counting down the time til everyone was ready to go. Finally at 1am we all piled into a taxi and made our way home where I happily collapsed into bed : )

Me and the birthday girl : )

 Group shot!

 

And Friday morning we were finally off to San Diego! To be continued... : )