So now what?

Well since the marathon the week has been busy getting ready for our trip departure THIS FRIDAY NIGHT!!! The plan is leave Friday after work in the van and trailer our motorcycles down to Joey's family's place in Ider, Alambama. Ider is on top of of a mountain about 15 minutes from both the Georgia and Tenessee state lines and is absolutely beautiful!

We will sleep for 4-5 hours and then hop on our motocycles to ride up through the Great Smoky mountains and Deals Gap, which rate among some of the most popular motorcycle roads in the country. His family will already be up in that area which is about 3 hours away riding horses up at Pigeon Forge, TN over the long Memorial Day weekend. We will be staying in a little cabin in Townsend, TN for the weekend with my husband's aunt, uncle, cousin and his wife. While they spend the days horseback riding, we will ride motorcycles and then regroup in the evenings for dinner and perhaps a dip in the hottub!!! Sounds like a weekend I can handle!!!

Then Monday we will all ride back down to Alabama to relax for the rest of the week by the lake where I will relax by the water. I see some fishing, jet-skiing, and a lot of swimming (in the lake pictured above) in my near future. The forecast looks beautiful and I am so ready for a vacation!!!!

So the next week will be another very light training week. This week I have took it very easy, resting Monday and Tuesday, went for a short 30 minute easy run Wednesday, did a easy 30 minute spin and a quick upper body workout. I may try to fit in another easy run or swim tomorrow AM and then after that, I will just be pretty flexible and fit in what I can while enjoying the getaway with my husband!!!

I will leave ya with a few afterthoughts from the marathon....

1) My feet have hurt the worst of any body part these last two marathons. I wonder if any amount of training would ever change that due to the fact that I seem to run on the balls of my feet so often.

2) Perhaps I could avoid blisters on my feet with some baby powder in my socks and I even heard to Body Glide the bottoms of my feet. Hmmmm....

3) Speaking of Body Glide, there is no pointing of stocking up on some, if you are going to forget to use it on race day. Yes, I don't know how I did this, but I guess there were other things on my mind. And I have so many random chaeffed spots!!!!

4) My husband was a pretty good pit crew for the marathon and I really appreciated his support although I am fairly certain it is not his thing.

5) Changing tents after marathons are genius!

6) The gel flask race belt idea thing totally did not work for me. The minute I started running it was bouncing around like crazy. Then, I still had trouble with getting the gu out of the flask. Perhaps it was the thick Powergel (even though) I had diluted it with water, but I think I will try something different next time around.

7) One of these marathons I will make it though without hitting the port-o-potty. I know I cut my stops down this time around by at least half, so that is progress!!!

8) My head must be insanely round or oddly because any sort of headband sort of thing no matter the type (rubberized, thick fabric, whatever) all falls off.

9) In the face of wind, tucking in behind someone makes a huge difference.

10) Someone to talk to and keep your mind off things, really is helps!!!

11) Although I don't think I have drank chocolate milk in 15 years, something made me grab it and it was the best tasting thing after a marathon!

12) SO much of the marathon is mental.

13) I can not say enough about having great training buddies to get to the marathon!

14) I don't think I like the chocolate Powergels anymore but I have a lot of them left in the case I bought.

15) Knowing you have trained properly is a huge mental boost!

16) Reaching your goal at the end of the day makes it all worth it!!!!