Running Chick

We were constantly on the go this weekend, which didn't leave me with much time for blogging. Once again, it's time to play catch-up.

Saturday was the Copperman Triathlon. James picked me up at 5:30 and dropped me off at the head of the Burma Road so I could start my 8-mile run. My grand plan was to run the Burma-Manganese Road to Copper Harbor (about 4.75 miles) and then pick up the remaining 3-ish miles running around downtown. So, after James went careening, crashing and crunching rally-style down the road to supposedly "..scare off any bears so they won't eat you...", off I went and immediately encountered a fork in the road. This was a tri-directional fork because I had three choices - left, right, or straight. I didn't remember that from any maps so I chose right. BZZZZT wrong choice! Unfortunately, it took me three miles to decide that I was absolutley not on the Burma Road. Then had to double back to get to my starting point. Fortunately my little gps watch has a navigation feature on it which tracked my route into the bush and all I had to do was keep an eye on it to get out. Once I got back on the road, I was at the six mile point and it's almost exactly two miles to downdown Copper Harbor from the Burma Road. So, despite my major navigational snafoo, I was able to complete my 8-miles.

Once I pulled my track off of my gps, I was able to see where I made my mistake. I definitley should have taken the fork to the left.

I've now discovered a neat little feature which allows me to create a route and upload it to my watch. While it doesn't give turn-by-turn directions, it does provide a navigational route line to follow. Too bad I didn't think of this before Saturday. Bah.

I made it to the start of the race with 30 minutes to spare. Josh showed up shortly after that and we cheered James and my high school pal Tina (Hi Tina!) on. Tina ended up winning the women's division (YAY!!) and James was much improved over last year. Here's some photos and videos of the race: 2008 Copperman After a short post-race party at Zik's we headed to the KBC for more celebrating, dinner and shopping for a new swimsuit for Josh.

The Otter River Pneumatic Yachting Club's Fifth Annual Gala and Regatta was on tap for Sunday. Since the afternoon was going to be filled with massive quantities of beer and food, I decided to create a calorie deficit and ride out to James's house. I was able to maintain an average speed of 17 mph to Chassell, which dropped once I started to hit the hills. In all, I was able to cover the 25-ish miles in an hour and fourty-five minutes. I guess that's pretty good - I think it worked out to an overall average speed of around 15 mph. We had a great time tubing. It seemed like the river was faster this year compared to others. We had four newbies on the trip who didn't have proper tubing equipment and their rafts looked like swiss cheese when we were done. I think all the newbies have experiences like that. I certainly did, and the following year I got a proper tube. Live and learn.

That's it!