Mother Nature's Ugly Face

For the mid-westerner's that stop by this page, today was a great MN day for weather. The standing joke seems to be that the mid-west has only 2 seasons, Road Construction and Winter. But with the past few winters being rather mild, the Road Construction season has been extended to cover pretty much the entire calendar year. So with the rain that we awoke to this morning, it was a day to remain inside. As the morning started with watching the infamous white van head south, I returned to the couch to take stake for the day. Oh the naps were plenty....and needed. The past few weeks (maybe months) I feel like I've been going 100mph in about a thousand directions. So the couch was happy to have me hold it down all day. I did wait however for the worst part of the day to go Christmas shopping. By this time the rain had stopped long enough to glaze the roads with ice; the added bonus was the snow that started....with wind gal force winds. I might be exaggerating slightly here, but for those that got to feel the brunt of this beauty, it sucked

I sat on the bike today.....first time in about 3 weeks. Not sure why I picked today to get that going again....perhaps the Christmas tree that appeared in my living room that moved the bike and trainer to a different spot peaked my curiosity to see if I still enjoyed indoor riding. Lucky me, I do.

Its a little tree that fits perfect in the small room, I couldn't be happier to have a tree in the house

However, as bad as this morning started out, yesterday morning was great. Nice sunny skies, a great breakfast at Our Kitchen, a cute little diner in the Uptown area, and as always, way way to much food to consume. Judging by the photo below you can understand the amount of food this place serves.....but its so good.

The pancake that you sub for toast, yep, bigger than my face!!

Race mode and mood is starting to show its smug face again as well. We had a team meeting a few weeks ago to discuss the up coming season and that always gets me wanting to train and race. I have a marathon coming up in a few weeks, my average run volume a week is about 15 miles, and most of those come on during the Saturday morning group run...its going to be the best "fun run" ever. It might even beat the Sioux City half that I trained even less for....but I will have my same running partners and this time I promise to finish with her, not take off with a mile left.