This weekend is super busy for us. I am grateful for the extra day off work for the Fourth of July. I am thankful for all of our soldiers who have served and are serving. Not to belittle our Independence, but I wish fireworks were not so loud. I have to get up at 4:00 in the morning to run people!
Yesterday, I swam 32 laps (not lengths) in the pool. It felt great, and it is good to know I can swim the distance of my first triathlon, which is only three weeks away. 
Jasper ran the Liberty days 5k finishing in 23:56. He looks thrilled doesn’t he? Not his best time for a 5k, but excellent for not training at all. We followed the 5k with the gym for strength training. After the gym, I went grocery shopping, cleaned the house, and baked a low carb chocolate cake with almond butter frosting.
The cake is for Jasper’s birthday party, which is tomorrow. I ordered a “normal” cake for all the guests who are not low carb. He will be seventeen years old. I am so proud of the man he is becoming. I was so very different from him when I was 17 years old (high school dropout and pregnant). He is on the honor rolls, working, and has a strong sense of who he is and where he wants to go in life.
This morning I extracted myself from my bed around four. I ran twenty miles half road and half trail lots and lots of hills on both. I love to trail run. My next relay race (Epic Relay) contains massive hills. The best way to build confidence and competence is to incorporate race conditions into your training. That way, both your body and mind know it can accomplish what you have set out to do. So for Epic, I am learning to love hills and trying to run in the heat of the day once a week. I hate running in the heat. It leaches off all my energy. My hope is that my body will adjust over the next six weeks, even just a little bit, to allow me to maintain a decent pace in the heat.
This evening, I’m going cycling for 40 miles with some of my relay team on Antelope Island. In the morning, I will hit the trails again for ten miles and then head out for a nine-mile hike with a friend and my thirteen-year-old son. I should be thoroughly and joyfully exhausted once my family arrives for Jasper’s birthday party at 4:00 pm tomorrow. Bring on the cake!
ultrarunningmom 