What a week it has been!

It seems that a lot of bloggers are suffering through their training right now.  Jon at swicyclerun.com, wrote a great post at how his legs just couldn't take it anymore and crapped out on him.  Colleen, a.k.a. Irondiva, wrote another terrific post describing the cycle of tough training, hitting a wall, then breaking through, then hitting another wall, etc.  It seems that I'm not the only one that is hitting a flat spot in training.  Is my body just getting tired?  Have I not been training hard enough, so when the tough workouts hit, I can't handle it and pansy out?  It seems that I'm struggling a little bit, and it couldn't come at a worse time!  I've got my first Oly triathlon THIS WEEKEND!  Maybe the taper that I'm starting now will give me a bit more energy for Sunday.  But, before I tell you of the last couple struggling runs, let me tell you about my weekend.

Friday was my four year anniversary to my beautiful wife, Jennifer.  Man, I'm so blessed to have such an amazing wife.  She's wonderful!  I feel like I'm the luckiest guy in the world!  So we decided to celebrate, just a little bit, on a budget...  Neither of us had been up the coast to Holland, Mi, so that was the destination.  We love the little towns on the shore of Lake Michigan!  Holland is pretty cool with its little shops and stores, its lighthouse - Big Red, but it also has an amazing restaurant called Crane's Pie Pantry.  Crane's is a fruit farm in Fennville, Mi that has a restaurant there on the farm.  They recently opened this second shop in downtown Holland.

And, boy, do they make good food!  We had some amazing sandwiches, my veggie sub, and Jenn's Apple Butter/Turkey/Honey Mustard sandwich.  But then it was time for desert, which was the real reason we went there.  Jennifer got an Apple Dumpling with vanilla ice cream, and I got this AMAZING Cherry Cheese Strudel.

We had such a fun time eating and enjoying the great food.  Crane's is a must if you're ever in Holland.

After Cranes, we had to go see Big Red, so after a little drive and a 1/2 mile walk, we ended up out by Lake Michigan where a bunch of boats were headed in and out of the channel right next to Big Red.

On Saturday, we decided to ride the Kal-Haven trail, which used to be a railroad track that ran from Kalamazoo to South Haven, but is now converted to a smooth gravel trail for walkers and bikers.  It's only like 45 minutes from our house, so we had to do it.  Normally, during the week, there is a shuttle that will take you from South Haven to Kalamazoo for you to ride downhill back to your car.  But, on Saturday, they don't run the shuttle, so we decided to do an out and back from South Haven.  Are super good friends, Nick and Taryn went with us.  Here's the "before" picture.

We turned around at mile 16 in Bloomingdale, and headed back.  It was a perfect day for riding...not too hot and not too humid.  But, with four miles to go, the heavens opened up and drenched us!  It was a pretty nasty last few miles, but we made it back to the 4runner just as the rain stopped.  We put the bikes back on the rack, and took an after picture.  It was a fun 32 miles on the old mountain bike even though we got a little wet.

I've been slacking a little bit on my running scene, so Sunday, I decided to do my long run instead of a long ride.  I was scheduled to run 10 miles, but the longest I've run in awhile was 7, and that was several weeks ago.  I mapped out a 10 miles route and just decided to see how I felt.  Well, it sucked.  I don't know if I can really say that I ever "enjoy" running, but it was pretty rough on Sunday.  I got to mile 5.5 and wanted to be done, so I made a deal with myself.  Is it ever good to make a deal while you're running?  I decided that 8 miles would be longer than before, and it sounded like a good number to stop. So, I pansied up and quit running at 8 and walked like a chump the last two miles back to my house.  To redeem myself a little bit, I did ride 25 with Jenn later that day.

Then this morning, I decided to crank out a few miles before class at 7:30 this morning.  So, out the door at 5:30 to run 5-6 miles.  Again, it sucked, so 2.5 miles out, and 2.5 miles back in was all I wanted to do. I don't know what the deal is with me lately.  Maybe I just need to suck it up and bust it on my workouts.  Or maybe this triathlon this weekend will give me a little jump start.  I'm so stoked!  Today I pull our teardrop camper out of storage to get it ready.  Saturday afternoon we'll head up there to get settled, check out the course, and pick up our packets.  Then at 8am, the race begins.  I'm sure there'll be a lot of people racing this weekend, so good luck to you all, and thanks for reading.