yep, i think i'm gonna perish early....

this duathlon thing is going to do me in.

i biked to work today....all of 2.7 miles. nothin' really.

then after work i biked to the gym. another 1.8 or so. whoopee.

then i ran 6 miles in an hour. cuz it's just not running weather when it's hot.

then i biked home all of 5 miles.

i am freakin' t-i-r-e-d.

so i really think after sept 21 (which happens to be a good friend's birthday) that might just be the end of me. for reals.

not sure they award dead people medals. guess we'll see....

right now i'm a soft pliable silly putty girl. NOTHING iron about me.

ally, this post is esp for you...

what i SHOULD have done tonight instead of work myself into a putty girl is shop for a new outfit for part one of my tv taping tomorrow. well gee, look at the money i saved i guess :)

~jd who has to shower, drink lots of water, then a beer and collapse on the couch, in that order.

my dam hill report...

there's this workout that our club does twice a year. once in april, once in august.

it's called the dam hill as we start out running a 5.5 mile warm up from the ford parkway bridge in st paul down to lake street, cross and come back, and finish up on the mpls side by the dam near the ford plant.

it's traditionally an 'all club' run, which means most local lifetime fitness run clubs are invited to take part.

turnout this time around wasn't quite as strong as april, but still about 75 folks turned out (or so i think)...

i got to the gym. looked around. saw one of my club members. coach was part of the whole lead-the-workout shebang so she didn't run the whole thing. where is the rest of my team?!?!? my confidence when it comes to running solo ain't the greatest. so i hooked up with cindy, and then in walks allison huzzah! 2 other roseville runners!

allison then tells me pretty immediately that carmen the garmin had died on the way over :( this is a big deal to those of us attached strongly to our running technology. it's like a limb is missing.... and like a security blanket, something you learn to love and depend on....

so here i was with mine and i was able to give allison most of her times throughout our run together. this nifty piece of technology breaks down each mile and averages the pace and then gives a lovely total at the end. so our times looked like this:
mile 1: 10:51
mile 2: 10:32
mile 3: 8:53 (sorry to be so personal, but i had to biffy stop so i hauled to catch up!)
mile 4: 9:50
mile 5: 9:52
dam hill starts about mile 5.5
mile 6: 10:53
mile 7: 11:22
mile 8: 12:48 (serious things like running backwards uphill, hands above your head uphill, hands behind your back uphill....it's *hard* but totally effective!!)
mile 9: 11:34
mile 10: 11:51 (back to the gym)
total: 1:50:23, 10.13 miles

allison went 5.5 miles back after the workout...me? just 1 mile. allison has finished a marathon. i have not. (yet????) allison is one of my superhero teammates and friends (as is cindy who i will become an iron girl with in september!) that make life so much better.

speaking of iron girl, i biked it in today to work. then i will bike it to the gym. run 5-7 miles. then bike it back home. and my garmin's at 50% battery. hope Jorge lasts through the day (yes most of us have named our toys.. ~jd

ps can i just tell you the high i get from either a new people weekly or runners world magazine in my mailbox???? my drugs of choice i tell you :) got the new RW yesterday and had to pry myself away from it to get to work! we get to cuddle up together at lunch today. sweetness~

see????

i KNEW duluth was the most crowded e-v-e-r after being part of it on friday.

here's the proof.

pretty damn cool.

go duluth!

time to make some brownies for a gathering....yum! who doesn't love warm brownies??

surprise!

a few months back a coworker asked if anyone would trade weekends with her for aug 2nd/9th.

since i've asked for similar favors in the past, i offered up the trade to help pay it forward.
i didn't have anything going on this weekend....

so when i noticed about a month ago that the 'tall ships' were coming into duluth, and that mark is a big fan of boats, especially this author's series of books involving many tall ships, i thought up a secret plan.

so even though we just got back from the northland on monday, i got mark to take today off and didn't tell him what was up.

just drove north early this morning.

pulled up to the traffic halt on I-35 even before the DECC exit, (where the ships were moored) and saw an incredibly long long line of people (hundreds maybe even 1000). whoa. i'm sure this was a surprise to everyone, including the event folks.

it was.

but we forged ahead around 11am, waiting in lines of cars to just park.

then we proceeded to buy tickets (no line for that) and got in the anaconda length x 100 sized line to see the ships.


everyone was in good spirits despite the wait. had our sunblock & water, there was a nice breeze and you just got to know your neigbhors as time went on....

1 hour.

2 hours.

by hour 3, someone with a bullhorn came out to say that at the point in the line we had just reached, we'd have another 3 hours before being able to board the ship Niagra. just one ship. it was the largest so it had the longest line, but the other 2 ships on display had lines as well.

um. okay. my original thought was 'visit ships for a few hours, do the canal park thing, get a picnic lunch and find a great shady spot and laze the rest of the day away by the mother lake'.

we both felt (and after hearing from someone in front of us, who left her husband in line while she and their small kids waited in a shorter line for another boat, that all you get to do is walk a circle around the deck of the boats and then de-board) that we'd kinda had enough and seeing as we were only there for the day, it was time to just move on.



so we walked to the ships, took some pictures, and proceeded to find our picnic lunch at 2pm. we almost started with some of my favorite fair food, but i needed something 'real' first before rich n creamy dots....but i agree wholeheartedly with the sign's message :)


while we pic-a-nicked, my coach called. nice surprise there ~ my coach and i have become extremely close in the past 6 months talking about all aspects of life (esp outside of running.) she informed me that apparently 2 other Lifetime run clubs locally have blogs for their teams. she kindly asked if i would be our new blogger girl for our team and of course i said 'why sure.' so it looks like i'll be authoring, like, a *real* blog representing some of my closest friends and teammates. uh-oh. wonder if she asked any of them ;)

so all in all a good day, but a surprise all around , not just on mark's part. and honestly, i have never seen SO many people in duluth. ever. to me there were more people than Grandma's Marathon weekend, but the paper scoffs at that it looks like. Oh, and speaking of Grandma's, i am officially in next year's half marathon based on that smokin' 1 mile race i took part in a week ago. s-t-o-k-e-d am i about this. i loved every part of that race this year! well this is a way long enough blog post. time to hush up now....
~ runnin blogger girl, ~jd