This week I used races to celebrate my birthday and get my training in.  I swapped Tuesday’s usual rest day with Thursday’s easy run to give me 2 days rest going into the weekend:

Monday – Mile time trial (+ 1 mile each for warmup and cool down)

Tuesday – 5 miles easy with 5 strides

Wednesday – 8 miles with hill repeats

Thursday – rest

Friday – rest

Saturday – Tour Des Fleurs 10K with warmup and a second round for 14 miles

Sunday – Roller Coaster 5K with warmup for 4 easy miles

Total: 34 miles

This was my 4th year doing TDF. It’s become a birthday tradition! I was glad to have my folks there, and Dad walked the 10K.  The race was humid, crowded, and SLOW, and my time was a disappointing 6 minutes slower than four months ago…but it was a still a course PR for me (not counting the short course from 2013!).  Whatever.  🙂  I didn’t exactly feel like a rock star running the first time–and knew that as soon as I finished, I had to turn around and do it again to get my miles in.  I was super glad to have Dan running with me, especially down the stretch.  We enjoyed the post-race festivities and celebrated my birthday with church, dinner, and dessert that evening, then slept as fast as we could and got up before 5 AM…AGAIN!

Sunday’s race was the Roller Coaster 5K at Six Flags, and we did the Run & Ride option.  After an easy warmup, we ran the 5K at recovery pace–which was still good enough for 4th in my age group!  (Bittersweet knowing I could have won had I been racing!)  Then we headed for the roller coasters.  We wore wrist bands with the various rides on them, and the attendants marked each ride as we stepped off.  There was a chart telling us how long the track for each ride is, and the idea was to ride enough to add up to 5K.  It took us nearly five hours and was by far the most intense 5K ever (cookies were tossed—about a dozen times!).  But by golly, we finished and got our third medal of the weekend!  Despite the ups and downs (literally and figuratively), we had an absolute blast, and it was a great way to celebrate my birthday weekend!