What a great day!

Athlete's Lounge was having the grand opening of their 2nd store today and one of the many perks was having the pleasure to meet Olympic Beijing Silver Medalist Simon Whitfield. Gary invited a few of us along for a run with Simon before the store opened. For some reason I had thought this was going to be an easy fun run...Ahahahahahaha! I show up at the store and immediately knew I was in some deep shit. 20-25 fast men (some of which were UBER cute!) and 2 other women. Ok, so what. I'm used to training with a ton of testosterone, I'm not a slow runner, I should be able to keep up. Ahahahahahaha! The first 5 minutes felt really good. Then we hit Lower McClay park and started running up the trails. Speed picked up quickly and within another 5 minutes I was dropped. I slowly noticed I was falling further and further behind the group. Was I slowing down, no I don't think so. Speed demons were unleashing their wrath on the trail. Soon I was by myself, which is all fine and dandy...I love trail running, alone or with people, doesn't matter much. What I don't love is being forced to go fast on trails. I'm clumsy and get vertigo on the trails, not a good combination. Did I mention that the first 35 minutes of the trail run was straight up hill? WTF?! My HR was between 175-185 and topped out at 210. Jon and Don were kind enough to wait for me at the turn down....which was nice because if they hadn't I would have kept going and got lost in the forest. The run back down was scary fun. Fun to go so fast, scary as my vertigo was OUT OF CONTROL. Wow, very lucky I didn't fall. We all met back at Athlete's Lounge. Some of the Ironheads (local tri club) went out for a ride. Don and I decided to go out for a loop around Sauvie's Island. The first 10 minutes were brutal, it was only 35 degrees out. My fingers felt like someone had taken a hammer to them. But quickly I got my HR up and my Gore Windstopper Gloves and Jacket worked their magic. The ride was absolutely beautiful, cold, crisp and clear. I noticed as we were riding around Sauvie's (always windy) how much power I would save riding behind Don. I was conserving on avg 30-50 watts. Drafting is great! Well, it can be. I was surprised at how great the ride went for me. I'm running off a lot of fatigue from this past week and the "run through the jungle" this morning wasn't helping anything out. Also, did I mention my lats burn from cross-fit? Stupid DOMS, stupid pull ups. I HATE pull ups.
Anywho, 28 miles later and we are back at Athlete's Lounge. Spent the next couple hours BSing with friends. It was at this time I got to meet Simon. I was so excited because I follow his blogspot.

I felt like I already knew the man. VERY nice gentleman and phenomenal athlete. I got a picture and an autograph too! My day was awesome. And just to put the icing on the cake my bib number was called at a raffle drawing and I won a high end wetsuit. Hot damn! What a kick ass day! Now it's on to the PDX tri club holiday PAR-TAY. Time to have some more fun