Off the Plane and Into the Tennies

Loving our "sprummer" right now. 

 Motivation: we have lots of it lately. Here's some of it in a nutshell:

• A ticking clock: With only 18 days until we begin official training for IMChoo, we've been taking advantage of our near-summer conditions here at home to top off our base building. Our different resources have told us we need to have each of the disciplines up to a specific mileage comfortably by mid-May (20 weeks out from the race) so we're keeping that in mind with our daily and weekly plans.  
• Nearly-summer conditions: Beautiful weather greeting us nearly every day has given us oodles of motivation to grind out some miles or laps. Yes, oodles. The temps have been in the mid to high 60s and up to the 80s on some days. We ignore the wind for the most part, especially on run days, because if we waited for the breeze to calm down here, we'd never workout. We even dipped our toes into the formerly frozen green monster a couple miles from our house. Open water training is on the horizon! 

  

  Not quite the Atlantic Ocean . . . but will have to suffice. 

• Spectating: Additionally, one of our favorite training partners has a race on Saturday, so no matter the weather, we'll either bundle up the kids or lather them with sunscreen (maybe both!), dust off the cowbells, and cheer him on. Nothing makes me want to train more than watching other people meet their goals. 

• Off time with the kids: We believe in working hard and playing hard. Knowing we can play in this same near-like-summer conditions makes me want to work hard as well. Easter Sunday we went to church, had dinner with family, and basically played outside for the rest of the day. This included searching for Easter eggs, flying kites, building a sand castle at our version of a beach, and eating pizza on the deck. 

The time off in Florida worked well. We flew back last Thursday morning and took the day off. A 3:30am wake up just didn't jive with a later workout. So we saved ourselves for some big workouts over the weekend. We took turns running long on Friday, putting in a total of 19 miles between the two of us, and then I rode for two and a half hours early Saturday morning inside while Jason rode outside for three-plus hours in the afternoon. We had the motivation and the mental strength to tackle some big workouts because of the break. Of this I am certain.

Only 159 days left!