Go East, Young Man

I left the cold and uber-snow of central Oregon last Friday for the extremely pleasant weather of the east coast for over a week. Saturday was spent being lazy and sleeping in, going for a really cool run through some DC neighborhoods before hitting the Mall. That night, Bryon and Lindsay came over for dinner, jello shots, and an intense game of Ice Creamopoly. Although we didn't play to the real finish, I'll take credit with basically winning off of owning Ice Cream Factories (aka, hotels) on the two super-cheap properties. Well, I also did a sweet ice cream-truck dance, but that just made the victory sweeter.

On Sunday, Bryon took me for a really cool 3 hour tour of a nice trail system in and around Arlington. It was his longest and best run in almost 2 months, and for me, it was so nice to be running in shorts and short sleeves, and in my first non-50k weekend in over a month. Nice trails for basically right outside of DC. The girls and a couple other friends had a fat brunch waiting for us when we finished, complete with mimosas and bacon! Does brunch get any better than that? I mean, really?

Then since the Superbowl was that day, we hosted a Superbowl party that night. It was the first football game I watched in its entirety since last season. We had a great group of friends over, great food, and even a decent game. As a bonus, Bryon and I found a new way to use nuun.


Now the LMBM and I have been in Carrboro, NC, since Monday evening for some Fleet Feet training at the corporate headquarters. Last night was the super-big rival basketball game here - #2 Duke at #3 UNC. Although we weren't lucky enough to get free tickets (like one of the guys in our group did) it was cool to just be here right in the middle of all that excitement. The FF training has been very helpful, I've learned a lot, and we've gotten to know other new franchisees - a great group of folks. And the weather! Holy cow, I've been running in shorts and usually short sleeves every morning, on the dry ground, and even wearing shorts to work. No snow! This morning I even went to the Carolina Blue Track and did a Yasso 800s workout. This was my first track workout of the year (I've done a couple mile interval sessions on the road and treadmill, but snow has kept me off the track at home), and I wanted it to be solid. I was hoping to average about 2:50, and start a new interval every 5 minutes. It went like this: 2:55, 2:52, 2:49, 2:45, 2:44, 2:42, 2:40, 2:39 - average of just under 2:46, with no more than 2 min. rest. I was pleasantly surprised. The long, slow slogs through the snow are at least helping build my strength.

I'm looking forward to our last day of training tomorrow at the Raleigh FF store, then it's back to DC for the weekend! Bryon and I are combining a long run and 12k road race on Saturday morning, then a big group is getting together for some bowling and karaoke fun that night. It's probably gonna take a few LIITs to get me back up on that stage.

Enjoy and the cold and snow back in Oregon. I really miss it here.