Labor Day in the pines.

I was hoping my next post would be a big bright shiny picture of my new bike, "___" (yes, I totally already have the most perfect name in the world picked out for her. Unfortunately my mini-me cranks and R2C shifters won't be in until today, so she's not quite finished. I'm going to go stalk my bike shop to make sure I can pick her up by tomorrow, and I have my fit appointment for Tuesday! As soon as I finish my fit, I will be driving her straight back to the bike shop to be finished up (taped, cabled, etc) and will have her Wed, ready to ride Thursday.

I CAN'T FREAKING WAIT.

Anyhoo - last weekend we headed up North to Flag to get outta the heat. I booked a house the same week I booked our Show-Low weekend, making it easier to swallow the fact we had another 6 weeks of heat and hell left before our temperature (lows) would start to drop below 90degs. While Show Low was a bust, we definitely made the most of Flagstaff! My gf Karen split the rental with us making it a fun training and social weekend!

Last year was my first real experience up in Flag staying with my girl Amanda who rented a house in downtown. It was a lot of fun being walking distance to everything, however it was definitely loud! I have to say now that I've spent some time a few miles outside of downtown, I'm in love. Beautiful trails and endless places to take the dogs (off leash!) walking/hiking.

Easy access to all the bike rides. Quiet neighborhoods (although the townhouse we were in wasn't as quiet as I'd like), and nice dirt paths to run on….. But, I'm getting ahead of myself here before talking about the weekend I need to backtrack to the drive up to Flag!

It all kinda started Monday as I had a serious case of the "CMOs" (can't miss outs). Massive FB posts about Ironman Canada registrations. I was itching. I loved that course so much and had some friends that did SO well on it this year. My mind was racing wanting to register, but I had a big fat check to right to the bike shop in the next week, and we pretty much had decided we were going to do IMAZ for next year and not have so much race/travel expenses…

But by Thursday (I just happened to check the website in the am) the online entry was still open (or so it appeared to be). I headed out on my morning ride to meet up with Karen…. kinda started hinting around getting her to train for another IM with me. Then, when I got home Shane was on the phone with BSC coach and I heard a few tidbits about IM Canada… I piped in with a "it's still open."….

10minutes later and the next thing I new Shane said "get Karen to sign up with us on your drive up to Flag & we'll register tonight."

Withing 20mins of our drive up north I had Karen IN. We had a whole plan of attack for a Vineman half IM prep. Renting a house in Flag for 6 weeks to train, sans heat. It was spur of the moment & exciting. As soon as Shane arrived, we had 3 laptops open ready to click REGISTER. The IMCA site took us to the Active.com site and that's where it all went to shit…

As soon as we logged onto the Active.com site we saw "online entry sold out, check back for Community fund slots."

CRAP. Total buzz kill. We had already sent out at least 10 texts to friends starting the peer pressure trend of signing up!

To say we were bummed is a total understatement. The 3 of us just sat there with our jaws dropped having a pity party. Ok, maybe it was just Karen & I as Shane is totally fine doing the Community Fund entry. He tends to donate a lot throughout the year, so this is just doing a chunk of it at once. It took some convincing to get Karen on board, but I think we might still be IN… More on this later :-)

The rest of the weekend was just perfect. Although I was fighting a head cold the whole way, I wasn't letting it get me down and just told myself it was allergies :-) Mind over matter right?

Friday Karen took Shane out to rent a mountain bike while I stayed home did a 30min recovery run (my legs were completely trashed from the weeks workouts) and then took the dogs for an hour hike/walk in the woods.

It was amazing. Cloud cover, cool breeze & we had the trails to ourselves - perfect for the dogs to roam around off leash. Juliette went NUTS exploring, but I had to keep Baxter pretty mellow. He really shouldn't be doing anything to help his doggy ACL tear heal, but I just couldn't resist letting him walk around!

I spent the rest of the day on the deck reading a book and relaxing (as did the dogs). It was perfect. Shane & Karen came home dirty & bruised up from crashing (Shane), and apparently committed to buying a friend's mountain bike. Hmm, maybe I should think twice before sending my husband off with my girlfriend again!

Saturday we headed out to climb SnowBowl. This view just never gets old. I was definitely not feeling perfect up the climb, getting to the top a few minutes slower than last month… Allergies :-) I even took a nap after (this happens maybe ONCE a year… hmmm - must be serious allergies!)

A celebratory BITTY after, of course - the caffeine definitely helped!

An evening in downtown for Tai Food!

Sunday was long run day - 90mins on dirt trails. I got Karen to tag along with me for the 10miles, it was very nice to have company for the whole thing! My schedule had 90-120 ride after, easy effort. I was desperately trying to get out of it as I just wasn't feeling great. Somehow I pulled it together & while it wasn't pretty (completely drained) I got in 25miles.

We chilled the rest of the afternoon with yummy drinks and company and a fantastic grilled dinner! We even managed to stay up past 9pm (barely)….

Aside from the 3.5hour (should be 2) drive home Monday night it was an absolutely PERFECT long weekend! I heart Flag..