Trail Weekend completed!

So I wound up having lots of fun in the woods this past weekend.. I wasn't able to come home to proudly tell Mason I didn't fall down this time, though.. I fell... a lot.. I guess saturday was a success. I started with a 10mi run with a few gals I connected with through a trail running website. We met at Eagle Creek and they wound me round and round through the woods of the park I thought I was so familiar with. You see, I do plenty of running in that park, but normally I'm on the roads.. so the trails were pretty new territory for me. I had tried to run trails with a friend last spring, but we never really knew where we were or where we were going.. we just ran around aimlessly until we found ourselves back at our cars about 6 or 7 miles later. It was nice to be out there with folks that knew the ropes. 1 gal brought her very cool dog with her, which was quite nice to run with her.. both of them, actually! Her dog, Sierra, knew her way around the park VERY well.. kinda made me want a dog.. as long as she's as good a trail runner as Sierra, that is.. So after the run, I made a quick change & head on over to meet Ginger, Sam, Shawn and Danielle at the Broad Ripple Crossfit for a free demo class.. Not sure why I went.. I guess I just wanted to get the extra workout & maybe help my friends venture in to the world of strength training.. not something a lot of triathletes are super familiar with.. It was fun. They ran us through their 'start-up' workout, which was 500m rowing (a weak point for me, as it turns out), 40 squats, 30 sit-ups, 20 push-ups (elbows in! chest to the floor!), and 10 chin-ups, which I plowed through in a grand total of 5min and change. Considering how sore I already was.. I'll take it! And that was it for saturday. Sunday I had planned on a 'long' run in the woods of Brown County State Park with a friend (of a friend.. but I've met her a few times), Kim, which was great! I don't think I'd ever actually been in BCSP.. I've been on a bike ride before that went down to that area, but I didn't do the coarse that actually went IN the park, so I was in for a treat! I met up with Kim sunday morning and she had planned out a double loop route for us (though she was going to head out on a 3rd loop to do 20mi...I didn't think I was up to that just yet, plus with my 10mi on sat and my sore legs from fri and sat.. I didn't think 20 would be a good idea even if I WAS ready for that distance) meeting at Ogle Lake. The 1st 7 miles went well.. aside from the fall that I took. Falling while running on trails isn't new for me, but this one HURT. I'm pretty sure my knee came down right on a pointy rock.. I'm actually scraped, bruised & a little swollen still from that one.. But I composed myself for a moment & soldiered on. It was nice, again, to run with someone familiar with the trails.. Kim took me up to some nice lookout points & the colors were fantastic.. such a great day for it! After the 1st loop, it was back to the car for some water & what SHOULD have been, for me, some food. I'm still kinda learning my limits w/ trail running. I had my handheld water with me, but opted not to carry it while I ran b/c with my history of falls.. I'd probably just smash the thing.. So back at the car, I just chugged down some of my Accelerade/IM Perform mix & carried on. It felt like enough at the time, but I always forget that after the 1st few miles, I get more hungry/thirsty the longer the run goes on (go figure, right.. DUH). So what felt like 'enough' at mi 7, was NOT enough by about mi 10-ish.. We got to the top of one hill/end of a 3 1/4-ish mi trail & decided to take off on a trail we 'thought' would head to a campsite, which I thought might have some water, which would have been lovely! But.. the trail did not go to any campsite & water was not in my very near future.. So after going down, down, down this trail, we finally turned around and had to head back up, up, up the trail.. Then.. what we 'thought' would be an 'all down' trek back to the car, turned out to be quite up and down (guess we forgot about those 'down' sections on the way up the trail!). So I was exhausted. Completely on 'E', but there's not really an option other than to keep on going until I was back to my car. At last we made it.. Got about 15-ish miles in that day & other than learning.. again!.. that I need to carry water & fuel on these training runs..it went well! I'm looking forward to the next one.. I think this weekend will be a little 'lighter' on the trail runs b/c I'll have another big one the following weekend w/ the 15k race & a long run with Kim back on the trails of BCSP. I guess I should also mention that after my run with Kim last sunday, I decided I hadn't had enough of the woods yet for the weekend, so I met up with my friend, Sam (Ginger's husband), to ride for a bit at Ft. Ben.. and that's where the falls really started! Yikes. Things that I don't remember being hard the 1st time I was out there were really tripping me up! I didn't make it but maybe 5 minutes before I had my 1st fall.. into some thorny branches, of coarse. My next one was a doozy up onto the cement block thing.. didn't quite make it up, but was able to catch myself somewhat.. on what would turn out to be my 'kickstand' for the day.. my poor left arm! Several of those kinds of falls later, my left hand was pretty bruised and sore.. As of now (wednesday), my wrist hurts and my shoulder is sore, too.. Oops. Hope I didn't do anything too bad. I don't think I did.. I'm sure I'll be fine.. But I really need to get better at this trail stuff and QUICK before I really hurt myself out there. I do enjoy it, though! I'm sure I'll figure it out..

So far this week.. Let's see.. I actually took monday off.. I was very tired and sore.. and had some other things to do.. dentist, Halloween.. Tuesday was an early swim (felt sluggish, but decent workout), then Crossfit (great workout! though that's how I found out my shoulder was sore), then later in the evening, I played a soccer game..so got some nice 'sprint' training in. Wednesday has been a nice brick.. man it feels good to get out there & just go 'short & hard' for a while.. Quick 50-ish minute spin, which always kicks my booty a bit.. then off for as many 400's on the treadmill as I can fit in in about 20 minutes.. which this time was 6 x 400 w/ a 200m jog between. Then back a little later for strength & endurance class.. I'm thinking, for now, a good plan is to lift 'heavy' 2 days/wk at crossfit & then do the high rep/low wt stuff 2 days a week.. we'll see how that goes & how long that entertains me! And... that's all I have to say about that..