The Great New England Outdoor Adventure

Following my return from San Antonio I had less than 48 hours to wash clothes, recooperate and prep for this 2 week trip to the New England area. This trip is offered to all students of UT Tyler but since it is led by the XC coach and he pushes the runners to go we always have a big group of runners/triathletes. It is an awesome oppurtunity to train in some different locations and COOL WEATHER! Believe me, running in 60-70 degree temps is such an awesome break from the 100+ days we'd been having in San Antonio.

I didn't take my bike this year which was definitely a wise choice. I was going into the trip with the goal of running, a lot. And run a lot I did. The first week I ran my first ever 80 mile week doing about 82 or 83. Probably not the smartest way to bump up the mileage as I hadn't even been hitting 50 while in San Antonio but... oh well. The second week I battles some calf/achilles issues that I've had for the past year but still managed to run mid 60's.

We also did quite a bit of strength training and some swimming when we could. I had a few good swim workouts while I was there and have been just so happy with how good I'm swimming this year.

Other then training we were extremely active. I think I counted 7 days that we spent paddling in some facet or another. We did kayaking, rowing, white water rafting/kayaking, sea kayaking and canoeing. Also some rock climbing and lots of walking around during the few days we were in Boston. I absolutely love all the outdoor stuff, its definitely my second passion next to triathlon but spending 6 hours of paddling after a full morning of training makes recovery really tough to non-existent. Oh well, I knew that going into the trip and it was an awesome experience. (As I knew it would be.) I'm not sure what I'm going to do next year when I've graduated, I just had so much fun this year I can't wait to go back.

Here are a few random pictures of stuff we did in no particular order.