Good riddance to KY!
This last weekend there was a 'Spring Training' of sort for the full/half Ironman trainees iin Eddyville, KY. If you've heard about the flooding in the midwest recently Eddyville is in the middle of it. So the training became focused on biking and running, with swimming cut do to murky/possibly disease infested waters. We rode 56 miles the first bike. My first ride with the new bike. We started on a hill and I just took off! I love the Schwinn but man, the Scott just flies. Such a graceful ride. There are quite a few differences between KY and Chicago. The most obvious, besides the accents, are the hills. They have hills! And hills that build on top of hills through farmland. I started out with the Ironman group who had crazy fast pace! At mile 25 my legs said no more and just turned it into a joy ride. It reminded me of the old days riding up in Anacortes, WA through the farms. We even rode through little towns that were quaint and cute. Not sure the locals knew what to do with us. They were all incredibly nice and patient drivers. No yelling or honking of the horns. It was a great place to ride.
The second day we went for a true joy ride for 20 miles. It was humid but was really nice riding weather. After the ride, my coach didn't want me to run too much because a race this weekend. So instead of a 10 mile run we went for a 4 mile death run. It was pretty downhill but she pushed us to a 7:40 minute average! Fastest I've ever gone for that long of a distance. My internal organs were shutting done but we did it. Overall, I'm glad that I get to cross KY off my life. It was beautiful but would be a little hesitant to say I would want to stay in KY longer than the 3 days we were there.
I mentioned the race this weekend. Many of us from running club are running the Wisconsin Half Marathon Saturday morning in Kenosha, WI. This is the first race I am going into know that I can finish it and am running for a time. It will be interesting how it goes. I ended up coming down with a cold from this weekend and have been blasting my body with vitamin d3 in hopes to kill it off. And yesterday, I became an official biker. More on that later but I'll mention it involved blood, lots of ice and ibuprofen. Two days to go and despite the potential challenges on Saturday I'm looking forward to it.
Growing up in eastern Kentucky like I did, I'm used to having a few guns around to protect me. -Loretta Lynn
