weekend update

so i caught up with katherine, a friend from t4k, on saturday morning. she asked about how school was going and about what i was writing. she then forwarded me this rather awesome link containing a meditation on academic writing. good grief, i hope my stuff is never that boring! this was the first time i had caught up with katherine since the ride ended, and she helped me to put a number of things into perspective. i think she had a really good idea of some of things i had been struggling with and it was good for me to see that someone else noticed many of the same things i did. it kind of makes you feel less crazy when someone else notices cliques, habits, whatever, that you thought you were only imagining. anyways, this was another of what has turned out to be an onslaught of texas 4000 memories and processing in the last couple weeks. many tears have been shed as the memories come back, but they have been followed by a feeling of calm and understanding. its good.

as for the saturday ride, it was much better than last week. last week and this week have been exercises in how to prepare for a long workout which begins at 12noon. last week, i didn't eat enough in advance and was bonking with about an hour (or more?) to go (in a 3.5 hour ride) while michelle was flying up the hills. this week, michelle was struggling through and i was feeling pretty fantastic (after a good breakfast). averaging over both workouts, we decided maybe we weren't as out of cycling shape as originally thought. yesterday was great too because it ended up being a ~4 hour ride with some ridiculous headwind, followed by a ~2.5 mile transition run (~8mi/hr pace). i haven't done a long brick in awhile, so it felt nice (that being a relative term of course) to be running right off the bike again.

today was a 13 mile run...i'm sort of tapering for next weekend (pacing a friend through the austin marathon)...and i just got back from my sport yoga class. one of the best things about yoga is watching how strong you get as weeks pass. there are always more ways to challenge yourself with in class--improving your form, deeping the pose, etc--but just feeling that your shoulders, arms, whatever, aren't getting fatigued the way they were a couple weeks prior is pretty cool.

i got fit for rock climbing shoes today too. i'm supposed to go climb on tuesday with one of my housemates at gregory. i'm hoping to get to go outside sometime soon. yeah!