Austin, sweet Austin

I love this city. After spending the week in San Diego (which is a beautiful place to visit), I noticed how much my spirits lifted every moment I got to spend in Austin this weekend. Even with the awful oppressing heat that has hit us prematurely this summer, I love living in this town.

Friday - got home in the afternoon, Chad picked me up from the airport and he finished his workday at home with his laptop. awesome! We had our pre-long run breakfast for dinner at Kerbey Lane, and I must say that the quality of the breakfast at the north 183 location is slowly but surely worsening. Our eggs were hardly the quantity that we used to get for "2 eggs" and the home fries are inconsistent. We finished the evening watching Doubt on DVD. It is good if you haven't seen it yet.

Saturday - Apparently I missed the detail of the 5:30 am start rather than the typical 6:00 am. I was a little pissed that the map only went to 16 and that I didn't have my normal peeps to run with...until we got to Mayfield Park. Michael had caught me (thank goodness) and we encountered our teammates coming down from Mt. Bonnell road. They explained that we were supposed to start at 5:30 and that there were 18, 20, and 22 mile options. Hurray! Anyhow, Michael and I ran 20 hilly miles together and despite being the last ones back to Rogue, I had a good run. I did 20 miles on only one GU and managed to sweat off all of the airline bloating. I estimate that I probably lost about 8 pounds of fluid during the run because even after a huge Jamba Juice smoothie and a lot of water, I was still 6 pounds down.

Chad and I spent the rest of the afternoon together. We bought a media stand (FINALLY!!!) for the living room. Our tv has been sitting on a console table against the wall with the cable box and DVR stacked underneath on a shorter lamp table since before we got married. Our new stand will be delivered on June 26th woohoo!!! We also had dinner at Corazon on Saturday night. It was yummy. I got the vegetarian entree with a caipirinha and Chad got the pork dish and a glass of wine.

Sunday - Went for a short run in the morning (3.5 miles). I planned to do 7 miles total yesterday, but wanted to break it up into two chunks because my legs were very very tired. 3.5 was all I could handle and my right calf hurt from all of the hills on Saturday. We lunched at Wahoo's (shocker! :)) and then went to the mall to knock out a couple of shopping errands. We saw Amy Anderson (HI AMY!), who told me that I was the winner of the 'Place Your Bets' thread on the Rogue Forum. I guessed that she would do 77 pushups in a row at this point in her quest to complete the 100 push up challenge. It wasn't that I thought she couldn't do more than that (I thought she'd be in the 80-90 range), but I really like the number 77 and thought it could be a reasonable guess. So, my prize? She is going to make me some cupcakes! Amy is a fabulous baker, so Chad and I are really looking forward to them. YummYummm! I may share them with people that I like :).

For dinner I made veggie hodgepodge out of the veggies that were in the fridge (green beans, sweet onions, mushrooms, red bell peppers, red potatoes, garlic). I tried making home fries the 'best' way by parboiling the potato pieces before putting them in the skillet, which was a new technique for me. They turned out so yummy. After the parboil I had onions simmering in the olive oil before I put the potatoes in, and they turned out so flavorful and crispy on the outside. The other veggies were combined in another large skillet and turned out well, too. I opened a bottle of 'The Hermit Crab' Viognier Marsanne, which turned out to be both delicious and trouble. Chad and I finished the whole bottle, which means I had more than two glasses and went beyond my one glass buzz. I have no business going beyond a glass and a half of wine.

Anyhow...It was a good weekend. I finished 60 miles (including the miles on the sidewalk paths in San Diego). This week I hope to do 65-70, but we'll see. I'm really okay with whatever comes each week as long as I continue to build. There is plenty of time to run lots of miles this summer. My goal this week is to get lots of sleep.