Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Greetings from Lake Michigan


I arrived at the lake late Saturday afternoon, just in time to see the sun set as I sat on the steps of our cottage which overlooks the massive body of Lake Michigan directly below. It is beautiful here...no one believes me when I tell them how gorgeous Michigan is and how special this place is to me and my family.
Saturday evening and all day Sunday, we had the place to ourselves; it was cold - very cold, so we just hung out and got a lot reading done (writing for me) and enjoyed the view from the sun porch. We took a walk down on the pier to the lighthouse and we ate at Butch's Burritos, a local favorite. Sunday evening our friends from Iowa came and the house was now busy. 10 in all. I didn't run at all on Sunday; I could feel soreness from the previous day Bix race day and intended to use this day to just recover my legs. I went to the local YMCA here and did some weights. It's a nice facility, probably the only place within a 20 mile radius that I can go workout, as best I can tell, so it's not like I have a lot of choices here. It's certainly not filled with high-end equipment but it has the basics and gets the job done.
Monday I woke up to a bit warmer weather but still pretty cool for Michigan. I hear the Midwest is full of record July low temps. I believe it. I went for a 10 mile easy run...my legs were still sporting some muscle soreness from Saturday. I was pretty tired at the end and also a tad lost. I intended to do 10 miles but think it was more like 11.
Monday afternoon we hung at the beach all day. It was cooler than what we're used to for beach week but I managed to get a little sun regardless. The boys had a great time jet-skiing on our friends jet ski. Another walk to the pier (it's just a little over a mile), Dairy Treat (I did not indulge. At least not in my own...but I did have a few bites of every one else's ;) ) and watched the musical fountain. We laugh so much; just so great to be around such special friends.
Tuesday morning I woke up at 4am to the sound of a big front coming through which was banging my window and my bedroom door. I laid awake for what seems like eternity and finally feel back to sleep, just in time to get up and go for a run. I ended up at the Y for my fun, mostly because I was to do a tempo run and my Garmin's battery is about dead (of course I forgot the charger. I do have chargers for about 7 other devices though!) so wanted to be sure I was on track for tempo since I was having problems with this run all summer. It went well, thought my legs were a little tight. I stretched them a lot before and after. Ran 2 easy=4x10 minutes at 7:52 pace+1 easy. Gave me 9 miles total. I tried to do some weights after and I did okay up until I had to do the 3 sets of 3-ball pushups. I did one set and did them on 1 ball, not 3. Just way too tired from the previous run.
The front that came through during the night and initially called for rain fizzled and it was a sun-filled gorgeous day around 78 degrees. The kids and I walked downtown and got chicken tacos at Butches (this is a habit, apparently) and bought Coast Guard t-shirts. Brendan walked home while Abbey, Ryan and I walked around town and looked in some shops. We went to our favorite pizza place for dinner (I picked off most of the greasy cheese) and got home just in time for our other friends that live in Michigan to arrive.
We now have a house-full of 14 people. The boys have a friend here now and they hit the beach within seconds of his arrival. My friends from Iowa have a daughter that is 10 and our friends from MI had a daughter the same age. Our Iowa friends also have a daughter Abbey's age (a year older really) and their son is close to their age also. So all kids are boding well with one another. We do have a house-full but wow, it's so much fun!
13 easy on my schedule tomorrow. I will get up early before the masses awake so we can all start our beach day early. I can't wait.....I hope I don't get lost again!
Monday: 10 miles run
Tuesday: 9 miles run, weight training

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