Fun with Jayhawks

Last night we went to Mike and Barb's condo for some training, some dinner and some American Idol. All ended up being fantastic, but of course not without some drama sprinkled in.

As we were walking to the lakefront path, the rain that had subsided a bit previously, started really coming down. And of course, the wind picked up. I had forgetten my Garmin and so did some distance math, deciding that 6 miles would roughly be to the Fullerton bridge and back. We were off, making sure to note that we would be meeting back at the track on Chicago & Lakeshore Drive to do some strides. When we get onto the path, the wind and the rain were terrible. Terrible to the point that it was funny. I asked Jason if we were crossing that line that separated toughness from stupidity and as we were already soaked from head to toe, we decided it couldn't get any worse and to stick with it.

I quickly realized that I had done bad distance math and our run was going to be a little shorter than I had planned. After the turnaround I made sure to tell Mike and Barb to run all the way back to the track, (I get nutsy about getting my planned mileage and while it's only a block from the lake front to the track I figure it's still distance). About this time, I looked down at my shorts and there was some kind of suds on them. I figured that it must just be from all the rain. I looked at jason's shorts and he had the same behavior going on. I realized (after getting a wiff of Tide) that there was still soap in our clothes and that our washer must not being doing a good job with the rinse cycle, or we are using too much soap. Either way we wondered if the clothes were going to be clean after the run...I mean you had soap, water....I kid.

I cheked the run distance when we got home and it was about 5.6 miles or so. which isn't too far off from where we were supposed to be. We came in at surprisingly 47:58, which is just over 8:30 miles...go figure. I am getting used to having quick runs in the nice weather, but I was surprised to see those kind of miles in the shittyness that was the weather last night. So yay us!

We then wanted to do 8x100m strides. We do strides on this track, striding the straight parts, and walking the curved parts. 8 strides = 4 laps = 1 mile. Jason and I did one laps worth of strides when Mike showed up. The three of us did 3 laps worth of strides when Barb showed up. I think I used to think that these were easy. And they very well might be as the training continues, but the strides were difficult for me last night. I might be doing them too fast.......my heart was racing a bit....but anyways, we finished up and Mike and Barb did a lap together and then Barb was on her own for 3 more laps. Another great job by the Kansas crew this week. Looking forward to seeing them push it this summer. We are going to run from ther condo on Thursday as well, as I like the lake front path...and well they live almost right on it :-).

After the run, we headed back to the condo, I jumped in their fantastic new shower to get the dirt off of me. We settled in to American Idol....I do hope Blake continues on. I loved his preformances, Jordin was also incredible. I like Melinda I guess...she's good...but I don't find her as interesting as the other two, so we'll see what happens tonight. Mike made a *fantastic* dinner of bbq chicken and rice and cauliflower. All very delicious!

As the evening came to a close I went back and forth with Barb about us taking the bus vs her giving us a ride home. I finally took her up on her offer for a ride given the weather and my exhaustion. We get into the elevator....and nothing...except a very loud alarm sounding noise. They called the woman at the front door and within 15 minutes they had us out of the small tiny confining box of death...I mean elevator. So...maybe I should have ridden the bus. Sorry guys!

We were very appreciative of the drive home because it had started raining pretty hard again. We showered and fell into bed, finished watching Jesus Camp...which I have to say is just about one of the most terrifying movies I have ever seen. Scary stuff.

We have an........shhhh....OFF day today! We walked to the Kedzie station again this morning and will walk back in the evening. Tomorrow it's 9 miles, and then a little bit of a crazy running weekend to do a trialish run for the GMR relay. Stay tuned for more details!