I love long weekends!

Needless to say, I was in a world with no internet connect for 3 days this weekend!  It was a great break from the craziness!  Loved each and very minute of it!  I will post a few photos later once I get caught up with other things!
The weekend started off with a little relax, Friday was an off day and I took it to full adaventage.  I have been listening to how I feel and taking teh off days when I start to feel tired.  I would rather feel lazy for a dady than be a hero and get myself in a negative or over trained state before the real fun begins in the next couple of weeks.

Saturday the fun still continued with a relaxed

long'sih bike ride.  I have a team that is enterred into the Ride to COnquer Cancer, this weekend was a training ride for the entire group.  Although there was a light rain the ride was awesome.  It was in an area called the forks of teh credit, which is a very hilly area north of the city, it runs along a river through great hills to train on.  The ride was relaxing as one team member is 75 and I wanted to make certain that he felt strong along the way so I rolled back to him quite a bit to 'caoch' him along.  Overall the ride was only 60k, but the hills and the fun of being out was great.  I used the hills to do sprints and work on climb technique so as to make it more productive a ride.    The rest of the day Saturday was about relaxing and having fun with friends!  We headed to a pub to have a drink and watch the hockey game, it was a pathetic demonstration of hockey on the part of the Canadians!  We enjoyed a couple of brown pops while wathcing the game.  It was quoite entertaining for the partons as we got into a stretch anf yoga session to figure out the best stretch for glutes and hams.  We had the entoire staff watching us spread out on the floor of the pub.  It was quite an entertaining site!  The rest of the day Saturday got ugly!  We continued to enjoy cold beers on a great day while sharing all sorts of fun stories from our adventures together as friends.  Even the dogs were having a blast, look at the smiles on them!  At dinner time, we more than over consumed our share of wime.  The natural progression ater our port with desert was to try out some tequila, then some more beer to wash it down!  It all seemed like a great idea at the time!  It has been along time since I consumed that much alcohol, and it will be a long time before I do it again! 

After pulling my head from under a pillow Sunday morning, I was faced with my run for the day!  I am now at the point that I don't allow any excuses to not do my runs.  That is the toughest part for me, so taking a run out of the schedule because my haed hurt would be to big a comprimise!  So, in some of the hilliest areas in ONtario, I put on my HR monitor and my Mizuno's and heaeded out for my run!  It was tough, the temperature was 27-28C, it was humid and not a spot of wind.  The hills were the kind that stare you in the face for ever, you just climb and climb, then go down a wee bit and climb and climb again!  I felt awesome after I was done!  It was a weekend run so LSD was the mode, I was happy as could be to have tackled it and the hills were wonderful!
Monday!  Woo HOO!  a free day!  I love long weekends!  Sunday night was a little more low key, we left out the copious extra drinks from the night before!  So Sunday AM was one to stay in bed and get a little rest that is not part of most Monday mornings!  What a treat, stayed in bed until 8:45am.  It has been a long while since that has happened, and it was great!  Once up and at it, we headed out for a bike ride, and an awesome ride it was.  The roads that we were on are 100% hills, there is not a flat spot anywhere on the roads.  The uphills are long and filled with leg burning and HR pumping miles, it was a day of the most beneficial riding this season!  Up, up and up was the theme for the day!  I actually did a few of the hills a couple of times, I rode up and then turned back to go and meet the group again.  It was a great way to get some extra climbs in and it kept me with the group.  Last summer I rode a couple of those hills and they chewed me up and spit me out!  I swore at them as i was climbing, they got the best of me.  This weekend, I smiled as I ground up them and tackled them with comfort and strength!  Ha!  It is early and I know that I will be back there for a lot more torture!
Today was back in the pool.  It was a technique practice that was short at 2700m. It makes me smile to say that a 2700m practice is short!  I felt strong throughout the swim and believe that I did decently holding good technique throughout.  I did however decide that it was time to get the swim coach to start working with.  Next week I hope to get out with her at least once to continue on the development.  I loo forward to seeing what she has to offer and to the results that it will provide.  My short encounter with the coach last year was awesome so this should be good!
I finished today with a great short run in a ton of heat!  It was a LUlulemon night with the group staying strong.  The temp today was 31 celicus, so I thought a few might bale on the event.  It was great to see they were out.  Once girl who I thought may have packed it in was out and strong.  I had offered her some tips on improving speed last week, but at the end of the run she was tired, actually burnt!  She even suggested that she may not come out.  Hooray!  She was back, and told me about working on the things that I talked about with her!  Love it! Out in the heat and talking about the tips that we had discussed.
Overall the last 5 days have been awesome, lots of training, lots of fun., lots of friends!  What more can someone ask for!
I hope that it was as great for you as I enjoyed it!  Cheers!