Are You Kitten Me?

I’m really starting to enjoy weekends with no plans. Especially when the weather is nice.

After staying out a bit late Friday night, Eric and I were up pretty early Saturday morning and were itching to go ride our new bikes. We made a plan and headed into Fairmount Park near Belmont.

Oh new bikes? Plural? Yeah, a few days after I got my new bike Eric bought a mountain bike. Our apartment is overflowing with bikes.

Fairmount Park is such a large park and I feel like every time I run or ride there I discover something new. Our friend Bob was nice enough to take us to some trails I didn’t even know existed.

I’m not going to lie, learning to ride on the trails was hard. Between shifting gears, clipping in and clipping out, hopping over logs, avoiding brush and trees, I was pretty overwhelmed. But I managed to stay up right for the most part and I am excited to get back out there soon and learn some more.

We then headed over to the plateau to ride some grass and gravel. This might be one of my favorite spots in the city because of the view.

Later in the day Eric and I ran a few errands. I had to stop and buy some cat food at our local shop. There is a cat who lives there and it might be the ugliest cat ever. But so sweet. I reached down to pet it and the cat jumped up on my back and refused to leave. She just kept rubbing her face against mine and purring really loudly.

It’s what’s on the inside that counts.

We stayed in Saturday night and made pizza, drank beer, and watched terrible movies. Eric and I shared this Crooked Cockeyed Cooper Barley Wine. It was really good! It’s 11% but didn’t have that cough syrup taste that some higher alcohol barley wines tend it get.

We woke up pretty early Sunday morning and decided to go to breakfast and try to beat all of the Mother’s Day crowds. Even though there is a Green Eggs Cafe practically across the street from us, we wanted to check out the new center city location because our friend works there.

I ordered the vegan french toast and Eric ordered the breakfast burrito. Both were delicious and it was nice to eat before the crowds.

After stuffing ourselves we did a whole lot of nothing the rest of the day. I think the cats were ok with that though.

So I bought a bike.

Isn’t she pretty?

I had such a fun time watching Eric race cyclocross last season that it was getting hard for me to just sit on the sidelines and cheer. I immediately starting saving money and searching online for a used bike. I started telling everyone that I was going to race next season.

We looked for months and months and never found anything. Then last weekend Eric was at a bike swap and came across this bike. It was waaaay out of my price range. But by the end of the day Eric negotiated the price down (although still over what I wanted to pay) and I went for it. I was sick of looking for a bike and this one was really nice (even Eric is jealous!).

So…now I actually have to get really good at riding bikes and learn all the extra stuff that comes with cross racing. Gulp. But I figured I should put it on the internet that I will race cross this season. So now there is no backing down.

I suppose if your A. “probably not going to happen” goal for a race is 1:20 and your B. “this better happen” goal is 1:25 you did pretty well if you hit it right smack in the middle.

I know that pace isn’t that epic to a lot of people, but it’s fast for me and I worked hard to get there. I spent 10 weeks following a running schedule and I spent one day a week on the treadmill hating my life while running repeats. And I couldn’t be happier.

Eric was his usual superstar spectator. Unfortunately we only saw each once along the course but he stuck out there the entire time and cheered on all of our friends.

Overall the run went pretty well. I started out too fast and was feeling it by the 3rd mile, but then I slowed down and turned my Garmin so I couldn’t see the pace. I went really slowly through a Gatorade station at mile 8, I wish I had picked up the pace a bit! And I didn’t think I was running as fast as I was the last 2 miles.

I could tell the higher mileage I put in really helped. I never felt like I couldn’t run the 10 miles, and didn’t experience any pain associated with the distance. And as soon as I finished and had a bottle of water I felt completely fine.

We hung around the race till almost the end, watching different friends finish. Then we finally headed to lunch at Cantina Los Caballitos. It too forever to get our food which was really annoying.

And then we finally headed home after a really long day.

Thanks for all the comments and encouragement over the past 10 weeks! This was my first time actually trying to “race” and it makes me really excited about running this year. I have a 25k and a half marathon coming up within the next 3 weeks so I hope these legs are ready for some more damage.