Best Calves Ever

Two intense race weekends in a row make for a great excuse to have a lazy week.  Truth is though, I actually wanted to get some more activity in this week, but it was a crazy week at work sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day, ya know?

My legs felt surprisingly good on Monday after the Highlander, so Brie and I went out for an easy ride on Monday night.  I don't remember anything too eventful from the ride which might be a first.  We got in 11 miles and it was a successful recovery ride.  The end.

The rest of the week was interspersed with corporate America ruling my life (I really do love my job, honestly) and pretending that kickball counts as training.  Now that it gets dark out so dang early, working late really cramps my running style.  I'm just not ready to bust the head lamp out yet.  I did work up quite a sweat in kickball this week though, and even re-fueled pretty well if I do say so myself:

Want to hear something funny?  So I occasionally check out the number of hits the good ol' blog gets, and can see all the different traffic sources that lead people to my blog.  One of my favorite parts is seeing the search words that people type into Google that land them on my blog.  Most times it's some variation of "Molly's Miles," but sometimes there are some real wild cards in there that make me wonder how in the world that search term led my blog to pop up on Google...and then led someone to click it!  Here's one that popped up this week that is by far the best I've seen so far:

I just about peed when I saw that.  Don't ask me why someone was able to find Molly's Miles by searching for the "best calves ever."  Thank you Google, for thinking so highly of my calves.  My apologies, however, to the random Google searcher who came here hoping to find the best calves ever. Better luck next time.

After letting my prized best calves ever have yet another rest day, I woke up ready for some action yesterday morning.  I volunteered at a kid's duathlon that supported the charity I used to intern at.  It's the second year they've put this event on, and the second year I've volunteered at it.  And let me tell you, it's SO much more fun when you are actually active and think it's the coolest thing what these kids are doing.

ready to take off on the bike!

The kids ranged in age from 5 to 13.... I asked and I wasn't allowed to participate, even though I said I wouldn't take the award if I won.  Bummer.

Although, some of these kids were intense!  A handful of kid's had legit bike jerseys, and some of them could literally outrun me even if I was running for my life.  Watching them all cross the finish line was the best part of the morning.

There were a couple stragglers at the end who you could tell just wanted to be done.  One of the parents was yelling at their kid to keep running....the kid said mom can you run with me and she said no!  WTF?!  I felt so bad for the girl so I ran with her on her last lap...seeing her face when she finally finished was priceless.  Tip for parents: don't enter your kid in a race if you are not going to go out there and support them when they need it!  Fools.

After being inspired by kids a third my age, I came home and laced up my oops-you're-getting-kind-of-dusty running shoes.  It was PERFECT weather....I'd definitely categorize this as my first official Fall run of the season!

I didn't have any specific distance or time in mind, so I decided to head out on my trusty stand-by four mile loop.  It's easy to cut short if I'm not into it, and it's easy to add on if I'm feeling good - basically it's perfect for a noncommittal run.  

It felt good to be back on my old stomping ground (when was the last time I ran this route anyways???) and it was the first time in a while that I got out and ran because I truly wanted to -- not because I had to.  And man, I absolutely loved every single step of that run.  

I felt great and decided to extend my run a bit once I finished the 4 mile loop.   THIS is the feeling I've been missing for so long.....running because I am truly enjoying it....not because I have a race looming over my head and miles I need to log.  It was such a refreshing run....exactly what I needed right now.

And what better way to cap off a fantastic fall run than with a big ol' batch of homemade chili!

Two more weekends of races coming up, which means two more weeks of pretending to train.  I'm hoping to channel Saturday's run all week and take the pressure off myself to just have FUN with my runs this week.  Here's to a strong and fun end to race season!