Second Brick!! And It Did Not Feel Like a Ton of Them!!

I did my second brick yesterday afternoon. Great weather (about75 degrees). I was as slow as Christmas, BUT I completed 12.8 miles on the bike and ran 3 miles WITHOUT STOPPING!! yippee! I rode down Chisolm road and passed some real riders going the other way. They waved and that made me feel good, kind of like I was a part of the club. (I am very thankful that they were going in the opposite direction so that they could not gauge how slow I was traveling :) Anyway, I felt good the whole way. I averaged about a 4 minute mile on my ride, that is about 14 mph (not fast at all if you know anything about cycling, but "we got a first timer out here." I had my ipod stuck down in the back of my shorts where I could not reach it, so I was at the mercy of my random playlist. It treated me well. I sang along with some oldies and then listened to a great message from my parent's home church. The scenery on Chisolm is beautiful. Around every bend is a horse farm, or a marsh creek, or a nice pasture. It is really enjoyable. When I finished my ride, I put my bike in the house, threw on some running shorts over my tri-shorts (I still feel naked in them), and set off on my run. 1.5 down and 1.5 back. I was turning the corner out of my driveway when I realized that I still had my bike helmet on (ha!). I ran back and threw it on the front porch(more on that in a minute). I hope I don't do that on race day. I had a great run back down Mary Ann Point Rd to Chisolm. My legs felt pretty good (a lot better than last week). I was working at a pretty conservative pace because my goal was to finish the entire thing without stopping. I am going to work on speed in the future. (Coach Cory helped me come up with that strategy)
As I was finishing the first mile of the run, the sermon that I was listening to came to an end and my music started again. All day I had been meditating on some things that we had learned in church earlier that morning. I am definitely the "heady" person that our pastor was talking about. Here is an example of that...After the sermon, I immediately begin to worry that I have missed something or have not been doing something right. As I was training, The Holy Spirit began to remind me that He has me. His Spirit is leading me into all truth and I am walking with him and desiring for him to lead me and fill me. I can rest. I can recall several times in my life when I have felt Him press on me to just chill out. As I was running, I began to reflect on his goodness and his fathering of me; and I could not keep my hands out of the air. It boggles my mind that the One who created everything, cares enough about me to father me and lead me into Real truth. boggling. The Lord is so faithful to me and He truly knows me completely. It was a great training day and a great time with the one who knows me better than I know myself.

Oh back to the helmet. So I was on my last leg of the run, I had turned the corner and could see my driveway about 300 yards away. All of the sudden, I see a big white Ford truck coming my way with my worker man inside. He saw my helmet on the front porch and decided to put out the search team :). My hero. I started making muscles and he smiled. He rolled down the window and I shouted 12.8 and three baby! 12.8 and three!!