Three Bears & A Pig Farm

I’m going to go ahead and preface this entire blog post with one giant knock on wood. No seriously, think of me picking up Thor’s hammer and pounding it against a redwood.

There, that should suffice.

Now that we have that out of the way I can go ahead and tell you some very exciting news: on Sunday I rode 50 miles, followed by 20 minutes of running. Then on Sunday, I ran 5.77 miles. WHAT-THE-WHAT?!?!?!

That’s right, on Saturday I rode with my coach’s group through Orinda’s “Three Bears” loop and then some additional routes. “Three Bears” is given its name because it has three climbs throughout: baby bear, mama bear and poppa bear. Each climb’s difficulty is reflective of its name.

I was excited that my friend Ilona was back (she just completed her first Ironman), so her, my cycling buddy Jared and I made our way to tackle the bears and then some. But then something funny happen – somehow I was leading our little group (this should never happen). I was chatting away with Ilona and of course, we got lost…proving once again why I should never be on The Amazing Race.

As we were in our “this is the way that we should be going” state, we stumbled upon another climb that made my gut meet my throat. As I was climbing, I thought, “Holy hell. I don’t remember the bears being this hard.” I was sure that this was a bad sign and that I was severely out of shape. Post-climb and miles later, Jared finally pulled over to give us the news: we had missed the turnaround by a long shot and that hill that made my gut tremble isn’t even part of the three bears. In fact, we later learned that it’s called “Pig Farm” – yes, there’s a pig farm at the top but it’s no longer in use.

Three bears, a pig farm, and about 10 road kills later, I felt back in the game!

It’s a little ridiculous that I’m rejoicing over such small mileage with only a couple of months to go until IMAZ, but coach Paul has reassured me that my fitness will be fine and given my age, we’ll be able to increase mileage faster and take less time to recover.

I’m realistic though and I know that my injury set-back will mean a different game plan at IMAZ. I had a goal time in mind and I’m not sure that we’ll see that this time around. But hey, if I can swim, cycle and run come November 18^th, I’ll be a happy girl.

Happy Running!