End of March

Well March is over and came to an end on an overcast day. That means April is here, and that has its own set of terrifying conditions.

Swim: 0
Bike: 15 miles, 1 ride
Run: 144 miles, 12 runs
Strength: 5 times
Yoga: 6 times

Overall it was a decent month. Still no swimming this year. The one ride was on March 1st, and it was a great way to recover and spin the legs out for a while. Most of this month was in taper. Still getting 144 miles in 3 weeks of taper for the Umstead 100. And it sure beats the 138 miles I ran in February.

Today April 1st is the packet pickup for the 100. That's not an April Fool's joke. Saturday is the Umstead 100. I've been training for this since October. My nerves are setting in and I'm terrified. not even scared to admit that. I have no idea how the day is going to play out, but all I can do is take what the trail gives me on that day. It looks like it's going to rain until about noon on the first day.

I also got signed up for a couple more races for this summer. it's shaking out to be a fun year. I will finally get to do all three races in the open water swim series, and I'm doing the shorter distances at all three events. Went ahead and registered for the first one, got until June to beat the price increase for the other two. Also signed up to run the 3 Little Pigs triathlon again this year, I think my boss right now will be trying this as her first race ever. It's a great choice for her, and I hope she follows through.

March also provided some really fun times in the convertible.

3/1 driving home from work

a bit warmer on 3/9

Also got in my first shirtless run of the year! 3/13 I got to break in a new pair of Hoka One-One's. Giant shoes are a perfect complement to the really really short shorts.

In other completely random picture from March that I need to pull together news, I got a really sweet swag bag from the race in Alabama. They gave out finisher plaques instead of medals, and I got a stick-on thing in the mail on 3/31 denoting my 41 mile finish distance.

Delano Park Rocks

This is a really cool picture of Ella and I at a restaurant recently. I don't know why I like it so much, but it just cracks me up.

Man I love hanging out with my girl

Of course, also Easter happened in March. It was preceded by a wonderful visit from my parents for a couple of days. Since Dad almost never comes to Raleigh, this was a real treat. They hung out mid-week, I still had to work, we did some fun stuff in the evenings and worked on the shed some together, and they brought me my tools. I got no pictures this visit. Still a blast. They made it back to SC in time for the holiday, and we had fun stuff to take care of too.

Easter baskets with real eggs

Family portrait in front of the church

Easter egg hunt at the country club

The girls had a blast with their grandfather

We had a huge easter service at the church, it was a wonderful experience. Then afterwards we went to the NC State golf course clubhouse for a huge brunch with Mickey. They had an easter egg hunt at the club too. All of those Easter Sunday festivities were by far the highlight of the weekend.

March also finished on a really strong note! This and Easter should both really be their own posts since they have so many pictures but I've run out of March to post about. Evil Genius has finally learned how to ride a bike! She's riding on her own now, after being terrified of it for years. I am totally the proud daddy too. It's fantastic! All of those years doing the Indian Princess camps in the spring where everyone else there would ride and she still wanted training wheels. This is it! She's got it down now.

I hope the embedded video works.

March was overall a fun month, so much better than February was. Care to guess how many miles I'm going to run in April?