It was a really nice weekend, and I say that whole heartedly.  I was nervous about the bike event we signed up for up north with my parents.

Friday was off to kind of a rough start as we hit some serious traffic backups heading North and didn’t get to our hotel until close to 10 pm.  My parents came over to our room though and we shared our good news.  They were pretty excited, especially my dad.  I hope that this gives him another thing to look forward to and not want to miss.

 The bike ride went pretty well too.  It was a cooler start and we went at my parent’s pace, so it was a nice leisurely ride.  The first parts went by pretty fast for me.  During the middle we ran into some hills and those were harder but I pushed through them.  The hardest point for me seemed to be about 32 miles in.  We still had a little ways to go and I was getting hot and tired and ran out of water.  We had to wait for a ferry and we were just cooking in the sun.  After we got going towards the end though, riding along the shore of Lake Charlevoix, admiring the beautiful views of the lake and gawking at people’s mansions it went by pretty fast.  The lunch was good and I ate a lot of food and felt pretty stuffed afterwards. 

 My mom and I went shopping around Charlevoix while my dad and Tim played some golf.  I got a little tired walking around and had to sit down a few times.  I felt sort of silly, since my mom with MS seemed to be doing just fine.  I felt pretty dehydrated though and kept trying to catch up on fluids. 

 Dinner was nice at an Italian restaurant and then we drove back to the hotel in Gaylord, played a quick card game with my parent’s and went back to our own rooms.  Tim had the Olympics on and I watched a little bit but fell asleep pretty early.  I couldn’t keep my eyes open. 

 The next morning we did an 8 mile run through Gaylord.  The run was pretty and went around some little lakes but the road was awfully cambered and after 4 miles of an out and back course my leg that had been injured suddenly had sharp, shooting pain all the way from my back hip area down to almost my knee along my IT band.  It scared me and I didn’t know what to do, given that we were 4 miles out so I knew I had to run back.  I stopped and stretched and then on the way back Tim and I made every effort to run in the middle of the road instead of the side which was sloped.  After a few minutes of running on the level surface my pain seemed to go away as quickly as it came on.  I finished the rest of the run with no other problems and it was both my first 8 mile run and first run over an hour since my time off from the injury.  The experience made me all the more convinced though that my injury was due to running on the uneven surface of the Myrtle Beach Marathon. 

 We drove home yesterday and I have to be totally honest…I was exhausted!  I felt like I could have curled up in bed and napped the afternoon away.  Instead we had dinner with Val and Derek and Mary Anne and Anthony and Val lent me a lot of maternity clothes/books that I can’t wait to read and gave us our first baby gift!  A little wooden toy frog that moves when you pull it.  It was something we saw last weekend with Derek after Byron Center days that Tim and I liked and Derek went back later and got.  They are such great friends and we’re lucky to have them in our lives!

 Tim and I watched the women’s Olympic marathon last night after we got home and I stayed up till 11 pm doing so.  Not so smart.  It was awesome to watch though and I felt myself rooting for Flannagan and Goucher, even though I knew the Kenyans and Ethiopians were much faster.  They still managed to run great races and I felt did their country good!  My eyes may have been closing during the final minutes, but I was glad we watched it. 

 Today is an off day.  I was planning on running 3 miles but thought I’d get it in at lunch forgetting I have a lunch meeting.  Given what happened on the run though yesterday its probably better I take today off.  I’m going to try to get to bed real early tonight and catch up on my rest.  Tim and I actually have a “free” weekend this coming weekend and I couldn’t be more excited about it.  This morning at work I felt so nauseous for a little over an hour.  When it goes away, everything is fine.  I just feel “icky” a lot.  I’m tired a lot, nauseous or just feel so bloated so I’m really ready to get to the second trimester.  Until then I think I’ll enjoy catching up on sleep and relaxing at home. 

Ride the Charx with my parents