Busy Weekend and a PR!

Time sure flies when you are having fun!! Started off the weekend a little early and left work at noon on Friday. First stop, Bike Authority. The owner, Sherman totally took care of me for a very overdue bicycle tune up. I had some time to kill so I figured I would test out the bike with a 16 mile loop in the valley. However, Cleveland's typical weather decided to make her return to remind us all that we should expect clouds and rain, so the minute I parked to start my ride, the drops started to fall. After some clothing debate I was off. I was slightly troubled because my bike computer was not registering data and after five minutes or so I thought to check the magnet. Problem solved!

Next stop, sister's house for a shower as it is conveniently located in the area, unlike mine out in the boonies!! Then it was off to my mom's retirement party. 36 years of teaching and the long journey has finally come to an end. My mom taught high school spanish for 32 years and then moved to elementary / middle school technology teacher for the most recent four years. It was a hard decision for her to retire as she has really enjoyed the switch in teaching subjects and grades. To her credit, she was a fantastic Spanish teacher and now also an extremely helpful and knowledgeable technology teacher. That was one huge switch for her which she handled well! I have often thought that high school foreign language teachers, particularily ones in less affluent districts, have an extremely rough job. I give her a lot of credit for the amount of time, work and effort she has put in over the years and know she will continue to do many new wonderful things in this next chapter of her life. Her party, put on by her co-workers was very nice and I was the official photographer!

Next stop, to the other side of town for Su's going away party. What can I say, cheap good beer and good friends. Yes, many of us decided to wear tri-gear to commemorate TriSaraTops 10,000 blog visitor. Yes, we were tri-geeks and enjoying every minute of it! Strange, that in a full bar on happy hour we must have scared others off because I did not even hear any comments about our phat get-ups! And then I finally made my way home.

Saturday, Jodi made it all the way out to my house for an easy brick. I had a nice 26.5 mile loop planned out that took us by Nelson Ledges Park, a short steep hill, my hometown of Garrettsville, past Hiram college, out into Amish country and back home. Then I grabbed my dog, Matches, my old running buddy who has gotten lazy on me and we went for a 3 mile run. He made several pitstops to lay down and lick the grass, but before long the training session was over. It amazes me how much quicker time flies when you have someone to pass the time with! So glad Jodi came out!

Sunday was the Solon Yates 5K Run which is one of the races on my Road Race Series which counts for points. My goal for the race was to break 22:00, which I suppose was a somewhat aggressice goal as my last 5K I set a PR of 22:56. However that 5K was in 20 degrees and I have trained quite a bit since February so I thought breaking 22 was totally in the realm of possibility.

The weather was typical cloudy with a chance of rain and about 55 degrees. I woke up early, made my race playlist with all my favorite songs, drove 25 minutes while eating my Oatmeal Raisin Walnut Clif bar and did a short warm up. And with the buzzer I was off. I started off trying to keep up with a fellow Clev Tri member that I knew was a lost cause. I decided rather quickly that I better ease off or I may suffer the consequences later. I was feeling pretty good at mile one (6:53) rocking out to my playlist. A few females had passed me ,which is recently bugging me a lot more than it used to...and I just figured I would try to get them later in the race. Mile 2 had some small rollers and a couple other girls passed me. My chest and legs felt tight and I pushed on. At about 2.5 miles, I started to pick up speed and passed both girls who had passed me the previous mile. Into the home stretch I continued my push to the finish on the track. I rounded the the corner and saw the clock at 21:50's....as hard I could push, no luck breaking 22 as I crossed at 22:07 (7.08/mile pace). NEXT TIME!

Oh well, it is a new PR! I finished 2nd in my age group and 13 out of 211 females (74 of 419 overall). This year has been somewhat ground-breaking in terms of my times starting to drop. Last year my Solon 5K time was 24:04 and the year before was 24:11. Not only that, I managed to shave nearly 50 seconds off my best 5K...so I will take it!