Motivation and Grandma's marathon

The Waconia triathlon is tomorrow, and the forecast isn't looking too great.  Rain is off and on all day today and it looks like there will be strong winds at the race in the morning.  I'm hoping for the best.  I have had the last three weeks off racing, and while it was nice (really nice actually), I didn't put in the training that I was expecting.  While I was feeling lethargic for about a week, it was mostly motivational, probably because I rarely train with anyone.  Eric is still up in Duluth finishing out the school year and Hauck lives over an hour away from me so its easier to go at it alone (or not at all).  On the positive side, I managed to get back into running a little bit (finally...), and have been doing 10-20 miles a week, mostly in bricks.  Nothing fast yet, but next week I am hoping to get in a solid tempo or track workout.  Hopefully I will be ready to run fast by Lifetime.

Last weekend I was up in Duluth watching Grandma's marathon/half marathon.  It was great to catch up with all the guys I haven't seen for awhile.  I drove up with some Luther guys (where Eric went to college) and we squeezed 7 additional people in Eric's small apartment for the weekend.  Eric and I were the only ones not racing, but we still got up with the other guys at 4:15 on Saturday morning.  The racers had to get to the shuttle at 5 and the half marathon started at 6:30.  We decided it was best to get a bike ride in before the race and then cruise around during the races.  We were out the door at around 5:15 and got in a 20ish mile ride before stopping at the 4 mile mark of the race.  I cheered on the Olaf and Luther guys and then we biked farther up the course, 3 miles from the finish.  I was hoping to get to the finish before my former teammates Malcolm Richards and Peder Arneson finished, but got a flat 2 miles out.  Both had impressive races, running nearly 68 min flat and 69 min flat respectively.  Watching those guys race really made me miss running.  I biked back up the course to watch some of the marathon.  A guy ran by at around 10:30am and said to us, "you guys are still biking? you went by my house at 5 this morning!"  I probably only biked 30-35 miles over the course of the morning, but it was still pretty funny.  We bbq'ed in the afternoon with some more Olaf alums and had some fun at the after-party that night.