Costco ROCKS!

I was almost completely out of food I could eat for dinner this Saturday. I had only 2 more sausage packages and 2 pieces of chicken thighs plus 1 bag of pasta. I had just spent $170 2 weeks ago on food and I was already down to barely anything. I really have been eating a ton lately and my training is just starting to ramp up even more.

I decided to bite the bullet on gas and just see really how far away the nearest Costco was again. Last time I looked I swore it was like 20 something miles away. I looked again and it seems the nearest one is only 10 miles away. Sweet!! That's easily within going once every 3 months or so on the gas prices. I was stoked as I haven't been to Costco since I moved for some serious shopping. I loaded up Elena into the car and we were off.

Another bonus of driving the 10 miles was that gas prices were 15 cents cheaper so I filled up my tank before coming back home. It was crazy busy at Costco but that's typical for a weekend. I went insane and proceeded to buy the entire Costco. I was able to get my boneless skinless chicken breasts. Yay!! I got some stir-fry vegetables as well. I was starting to run low on my rice so I got another 25 lb. bag of long grain white rice. A true staple in my diet. I ended up buying 33 different items. Woohoo and with that $320 worth. Most of this stuff will last forever. All except the 4 lbs of sharp chedder cheese I bought. Those will be gone in a couple of weeks.

The only think I really hate about Costco is unloading all the food because they never give you any boxes to help carry multiple items together once you get home. This is always a pain and makes me wish I had a house with garage but then I look at all the people out cutting their grass this weekend and I'm glad I don't have a yard.

More and more people are moving into the condos here so that's positive. They filled up the pool. They're idiots though as they really didn't clean it too well before they did so there's still tons of dirt and leaves in it. I guess that's why laborers aren't engineers because they just aren't that smart. It's a pretty big pool and I need to measure it to see really how long it is. It might be like 20 yards or something well I can hope.

It's under 3 weeks til the first big milestone on my path to Ironman Canada, the Half Ironman at Disneyworld. I'm getting more confident in my running off the bike each week. As I mentioned last week's workouts were completely sucky except for Friday's brick run. I did my typical hard intervals on the flats for the just under 30 miles on the bike. It was nice and hot at 80 degrees. I hopped off the bike and went out for a run. My plan was to do my typical 6.3 out-n-back and if I felt good extend it to my 8.4. I went shirtless on the run for the first time this year. I figure why not get some extra sun on the typical farmer/cycling tan. I felt good right at the beginning of the run and strolled through the first mile in 7:05.

I usually feel pretty good that first mile but depending on nutrition seem to feel bonky at the 20 minute mark. I've been working hard to get better about my nutrition on the bike so I've been taking a gel about 10 minutes before the finish of the bike. It's worked so far. I made it to my turnaround point for the 6.3 loop and still felt really good so I decided to go for it. I made it to the 8.4 mile turn around and proceeded to head back. I hit a 6:50 middle mile and felt fine. I didn't feel like I was really pushing it. I ended with a 6:50 mile and was feeling the heat w/ no water during the 56 minute run.

I think my current plan is to cruise the first 2 loops in Orlando and really push the third 4ish mile loop at the end. The only positive thing about being a slow swimmer is there will be people to pass on the run which will really keep me cranking out a good pace. It will fuel my competitive fire to be burning up the run course. I haven't raced since last summer so I'm just excited by the notion of being able to race.

3 months 27 days...