memorial weekend....

since the whole car clutch fiasco last week, my weekend plans went topsy turvy. instead of hitting a wedding down in hot, smoky florida, i was able to hang local and indulge in a few days of fun. i couldn't justify spending money on a race saturday, so instead i helped out and ran sweep for the first 16 miles of the inaugural scenic city trail marathon here in chatt. (mostly on the jones gap segment of the cumberland trail we've run a few times.) while the pace was slow, i got in a good run on a hot day.... however, i have a few mysterious welts on my legs that are a bit annoying and i see a huge patch of poison ivy surfacing on my forearm. big props to joey and the boonies for putting on a great event!

on sunday, i joined jeramie, jim & star for a long mtn bike ride out at the ocoee. after a delish pancake breakfast at cracker barrel, we headed to thunderrock campground, where we ran into fellow adventure racer kim moore from georgia. she joined us on a killer 4.5hr tour of some great forest service roads. we did see a black bear cub bounce off the road at one point, but luckily no momma was in sight. i swear we did more ascending than descending. my legs were sore from the previous day's run so i struggled a bit and bowed out of the single track finale (the snickers marathon bar i had towards the end wasn't sitting well either). after refueling at subway, we headed back to our cars at the cracker barrel... where jim's clutch decided not to work all of a sudden! (eek! i swear i had nothing to do with it!) luckily i had just renewed my AAA membership and used it to get a tow back to town. afterwards, the tow dude checked the clutch fluid levels, which happened to be low. topping it off with some brake fluid proved to solve the problem and jim lucked out. (unfortunately my problem was not that simple... or cheap!)

today i recovered and worked.. yes, worked, even though it was a holiday. my colorado cousin amanda arrives in the morning so i'm taking a few days off to show her what the east coast mtns are like!

update on the commuting last week: while it only equated to 2 full days, it was great. only some minor close calls with idiot drivers (nothing too close). i was definitely in super casual mode at work, but luckily i can do that. and i love being able to get stuff done around my house with my computer not being there! i'll definitely be making more of an effort in the future to do this more.