Eat Drink Run Woman

While a (slightly) pulled hamstring is no fun, it forced me to do something I haven’t done in a while: cross train (or as the cool kids say, X-train). I had become so focused in my marathon training that I had forgotten how much fun (and beneficial) cross training can be. But one look at the pictures of me from last September convinced me to throw on my bathing suit and biking shoes (not at the same time, however).

As I mentioned before, I had become bored with my pool routine. I typically go in the morning when it’s incredibly busy (there’s at least 3-4 people in each lane). I try to mix things up a bit by incorporating some pool running and kickboarding, but it still gets rather monotonous. Although Greenlake is just down the street from us, the weather isn’t conducive to open water swimming until at least the end of June/early July (although I did see a couple of crazy people swimming yesterday; must be training for a tri!).

However, my cook date last Monday was a quick one and I was able to get in a little over 30 minutes of lap swimming in the afternoon. I had the lane to myself for the first half, but another gentleman joined me for the latter half. I’m thinking of entering the Seafair tri in mid-July (which features a 1/2 mile swim), so rather than stopping in between each lap, I kept going — 1 lap (back & forth), stop; 2 laps; stop; 3 laps, stop; and so on, working my way up to 10 laps without stopping. It was quite a refreshing workout!

Because I have been such a no-show of late, my Pilates instructor had to give me a ration of sh@& when I showed up on Tuesday. I know, I know; I deserve it. Her Tuesday class is more of a beginner one, and since there were a few new people in class, she went over a lot of the basic moves again (which also served as a great primer for us slackers). On Wednesday and Friday I did my hour-long free-weight routine for my arms, followed by a half-hour ab lab. I also did a short run Wednesday afternoon, but went at a snail’s pace so as not to aggravate my hamstring.

The real highlight of the week was our bike ride to Chateau Ste. Michelle winery on Saturday for a picnic. We had toyed with riding from our house to the winery and back, but decided 40+ miles — including the mile-long Stone Way hill toward the end — would be more than we could handle (it was, after all, the first bike ride of the season). So we drove to Tracy Owens Park, which is about 8 miles from the winery. We figured if we were up for a longer ride we’d just continue past the winery for a few miles, then head back to our picnic.

Although it was a holiday weekend, the trail wasn’t as busy as I had feared. Our stress melted away as the miles piled on. It was a glorious day for biking — sunny, but cool. We sped along at about 16-18 miles per hour — a faster clip than most of the folks on the trail, but not so fast as to tire us out. As we approached the winery we saw a packed parking lot and figured there must be a concert. We weren’t quite ready to stop, so we continued on for another 4 miles before turning around.

By then things were really hopping, and several traffic guards were at the entrance turning cars away. Not a problem for us though — we just sailed right by them. As we entered the grounds we saw they were hosting the 2nd annual Washington Wine Highway, a tasting event featuring 70 wineries and 50 restaurants. But since the event was on their back field, the main grounds were virtually empty (although we were joined by a peacock). We plopped our bikes down in a sunny spot and I headed into the chateau for our wine. We spent a leisurely hour or so noshing on our goodies, sipping our wine and forgetting all about work.

Although we were slightly tipsy, we managed to peddle back to our car with nary a tumble. And even though we’ve been running fiends over the past few months, our quads surely felt the 24 miles we had just ridden. In other words, it felt GREAT!