Some knee pain on the run. Eased it out over the first 5-7 minutes.

---

Well, the word last weekend was that we'd hear from the new kittens' foster mom today about when they can come home with us, but so far we haven't heard anything. Which could be just as well--we wouldn't be able to bring them home until after the race on Sunday, and we will probably be pretty darn tired (*ahem*) at that point. We'll see.

---

Nice, easy swim. Did a few 50s sprint, but mostly just wanted to loosen up.

---

TWO DAYS.

Swimming at lunch today, running in the evening.

The plan has me taking today off. I'm either going to follow it and spend my evening unpacking boxes or do the short run that I was supposed to do two days ago. Looking at the hazy/smoky sky and knowing how little I slept last night, I'm tempted to go with the unpacking. I'll see how I feel when I get home.

Got held up on my way home by traffic. Hard to merge across two lanes of 45mph traffic when the cars keep coming, so I had to figure out another way home. Figured out a better way to do it, though, that hardly takes me out of my way at all.

---

It is starting to sink in that my HIM is really this weekend. Gah. If I plotted my heart rate throughout the day you could tell when I was thinking about the race by looking at the spikes in the graph. I know I CAN finish, and barring injury or catastrophic mechanical failure I know I WILL. But I also know that there are major holes (okay, craters) in my training that seriously undermine my preparedness. At this point, I figure the best thing for me to do is focus on the following:

• Do my remaining workouts as planned.
  
• Get some sleep these next few nights.
• Eat right and don't be shy with the salt.
• Hydrate hydrate hydrate.
• Make lists of everything I need on race day (lists calm me down--I'm type A like that).
• Write out my nutrition & hydration plan (it's in my head, but it helps to have it written down).
  
• Don't waste time or energy stressing about how prepared I am or am not.
• If I'm going to think about the race, make it positive visualizations.

It's just another race. Just going to go for a swim, head out for a picturesque bike ride, and then do a quasi-long run. It's not even a long run--not by my standards these days, anyway. Things will be fine.

---

Biked to work this morning. Knee felt fine! Fresh legs are great. Pushed it a bit on a small hill, but mostly just spun them out. Felt great to be back on the bike. :) At one point I got stuck behind two slowpokes on mountain bikes (with slicks, but still) tooling along at 15 mph without a care in the world. The shoulder, while very nice, was not wide enough to accommodate three abreast, so I had to wait for a break in the traffic to pass them. And it being morning rush hour, that took a while. Thought about saying something to, *ahem*, alert them to my presence, but chickened out. Eventually I got a break, yelled "on your left!" a little more pointedly than usual, and blew by them.

 

Dinner was fantastic.... definitely going to buy beef from these guys again! The recommended cooking method (crust with coarse salt, grill 5 minutes on a side, brush salt off, eat!) was perfect, and Steve was as enthusiastic as I've ever seen him get about food. I also (finally) tried the raw milk I got from Claravale Farm at the farmer's market, which is amazing. Whole milk is completely different from skim milk, but raw milk is another ball game entirely. Wow. I don't even want to pour it over my cereal because I feel like it'll waste the amazing taste. :)

---

Afternoon swim. Took it very slow & easy, especially as the shoulder was feeling tired. Bagging the run this evening... might go tomorrow if my knee is feeling better. Hoping to bike to work tomorrow! Meanwhile, it's time to fire up the grill for dinner this evening: locally raised, grass-fed, extra-lean longhorn steaks from the farmer's market; grilled zucchini, red bell pepper, and mushroom; corn; and some good bread. Yum.

---

 

Now this is what I'm talking about: a weekend touring Sonoma County (wine country and the coast) by bike. Hell yeah, sign me up! There's one the weekend after my birthday... Happy birthday to me??? :)

---

Knee was not feeling good first thing this morning. On tap for this afternoon is an easy swim (hang in there, shoulder, just six more days!) and theoretically a short run. I'm going to see how the knee feels. Might run, might not.

 

Knee has been hurting off and on. Nervous about Big Kahuna. Going to try to swim tomorrow and see how things go. Might do a trainer ride, we'll see.

I hurt and would like nothing more than to spend all day curled up in bed with a heating pad. We'll see if the drugs kick in enough for me a) to be productive around the house, and b) to do anything even closely resembling a workout.