End of Camp; Beginning of Taper

Wow. Rich and I are finally done with the camp, and are back at my house having a little quiet time. I mean I actually shushed him for a moment of silence, since he's been talking non-stop for 3 days, and then driving back in traffic, we were talking non-stop.

Pictures from camp are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8737154@N04/sets/72157600722611427/

The run clinic happened this morning at Olin Turville Park (same place where we started our ride yesterday), and Rich kept it short and sweet, since it was already pretty hot by 6AM. I only got yelled at twice to do stuff, and it was to help demonstrate some drills, and then I sat on the sidelines taking pictures. Then we drove to Monona Terrace and ran on the Ironman course as best we could, meaning trying not to get lost! I ran out for :45 with a bunch of folks, and most of them were running longer than me (silly me tapering and all), so I just flipped it and headed back. I ran into another woman, JoEllen, who had started a few minutes late, and we ran to the Octopus gas station where I bought some Coke and water. We then took off running, me with Coke in one hand and water in the other, and I kept dousing myself with the water to cool off, while sipping on Coke which perked me up.

After we got back to Monona Terrace, I knew JoEllen was short on her projected 1:30 run time, so I invited her to do "terrace repeats" with me, whereby we ran up one ramp, across the top and down another. We only did 2 repeats (I wanted to do more), but that was fine. I located Rich, who had used my car to place water out on the run course, but who then was riding around on someone's bike looking at us. I managed to avoid being yelled at or told something else that I might be doing wrong by Rich.

After the run, it was obtain food, get back to hotel, pack the car and head back into the classroom for 3 more hours of Rich spouting all sorts of knowledge about this and that, where I took a few more pictures to help him remember what the hell he talked about, and then we got in the car for a looooong drive home. Lots of folks took the entire week of vacation, so Madison being so close to the Wisconsin Dells creates a lot of traffic going back into Illinois on a Sunday afternoon.

I took Rich to Dell Rhea's Chicken Basket for dinner, where, unbelievably, Rich was UNABLE TO FINISH AN ENTIRE CHICKEN DINNER. I mean what's up with that??? The man can eat, I know. Oh yeah--he didn't run today.

And on that note, I am done doing ANYTHING for the day. I've unpacked, and now it's time to try and relax and figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do for the next 1.5 weeks before I head off to Lake Placid. I have already begun my traditional staring at the ceiling while laying in bed for the last few nights, and now I can add becoming paranoid about how much food I'm eating as compared to how little training I'm doing, getting royally bored at work, wanting to chew someone's head off for some slight transgression, and then falling into hysterical laughter changing over into tears at the drop of a hat.

Ah, tapering--I can't wait to be over with you and onto a race which I've trained long and hard for. Nobody gets sick and nobody dies, and I should be good to go!