Weekend Recap

This weekend included some craziness and plenty of fun.  The craziness began Saturday morning at 3:00AM when my alarm went off.  I had signed on to run with my running partner for part of her 18 mile long run.  I've been struggling with long runs this summer...choosing to sleep in or waste time until it is too hot to run.  I figured that if I was meeting Anne that I would actually get the run in!

Anne had to work on Saturday and was starting so early in order to get the distance in and beat the heat.  Unfortunately, we were only able to accomplish one of those.  The weather wasn't so forgiving...it was 83 degrees at 3:30 am! There was a slight breeze throughout the run which helped but it was warm.  There was also a ton of lightning off in the distance.  We stopped at her house around mile 3 to check the radar but it looked like the storm was over 20 miles away so we kept on going.  I got 8 miles in with Anne and was headed back home before the sun was even up. 

The fun started after I took my first nap of the day...the inaugural Tri to Remember for the Alzheimer's Association was being hosted at the end of my street.  I took Hershey and walked down to the park to cheer on my triathlete friends.  One of my coworkers was participating on a relay team doing the bike leg too.  The course was challenging with a very hilly 15 mile bike  course.  The run also included some challenging uphills.  The overall winner had a time around 1hr 8 min which was blazing fast.  Hershey was extremely tuckered out from all the fun...cutest thing was a little girl came over to pet Hersh and wanted to know what tricks she could do.  Hershey isn't that talented in the tricks department, she knows how to shake and high five and that's about it. 

The Jr. Livestock Auction at the Benton County Fair

After another nap, came the Benton County Fair. My friend Kyla was dying to see the livestock.  I discovered that a county fair pales in comparison to the Iowa State Fair which was the main fair that I went to growing up.  We toured the livestock barns and talked to the kids about their animals that they were showing.  My favorite was a girl who had put glitter all over her pig so that it's muscles would be more pronounced when she showed it.  The girl had glitter to match as well! There was also Lucky Norman the 6 month old cow who was trying to sneak some Dr. Pepper! We saw lots of big belt buckles and on the girls rhinestone belts galore! We continued our tour of the best of Benton County with a trip to Glasgows restaurant. 

Sunday was laid back and started with a 5 mile run with my brother-in-law Scott and his friend Matt.  They are training for a 10K on Labor Day and this was their farthest run so far in their training.  They wanted some help with new places to run so I took them on a tour of Bentonville.  The weather was cooler but extremely humid.  The guys were pleasantly surprised when I told them we were at the 5 mile mark and that they were done.  Both said they felt they could have gone further which is great for their race coming up.  It wasn't the easiest route too...there was a mix of hills and they did awesome. 

Brent, Kyla, me, and Cole enjoying the shade during our bike ride.

Later in the afternoon, I met up with friends for a bike ride.  I had requested to do at least 30 miles on Friday but wanted to change my request because it was so hot. The good thing about friends is that they push you when you want to chicken out!  The temp was 97 degrees and it was super sunny.  Brent and Kyla were in charge of the route and we changed things up with some new roads and doing some old roads in reverse direction than we normally do.  Cole had raced in the triathlon and didn't seem to mind keeping Kyla and I company on the ride while his dad, Brent, picked up the pace in some sections.  We took a break around mile 22 at a gas station to refill our water bottles.  It was hard to leave the gas station...the air conditioning felt awesome! We ended up with 34.5 miles and averaged 16mph over a course with some rolling hills.  Not a bad finish to the weekend, but I'm tuckered out!