Take The Long Way Home

This morning's run had three distinct phases which can be summed up with lyrics from my handy dandy iPod:
MC Hammer says, "Better work hard or you might as well quit."
Madonna says, "Those who run seem to have all the fun."
And Melissa Etheridge says, "Somebody bring me some water!"

In other news, I am freaking out about our long run this weekend - 10 miles. Seven, eight and nine mile runs are "long for me" runs but double digit mileage? That's like "long for most people"! But here's the thing. I'm actually freaking out even more about the long ass drive.

This Friday John, Donna, and I leave to drive to Nashville to spend a weekend with the kids and my extended family celebrating my upcoming birthday. On Monday Donna and I leave Nashville to continue the drive to San Francisco. (Our most beloved sherpa has to work and will miss this one, but he'll be with us for September's tri.) We're taking the "Southern route" out (which is mostly I-40) and the "Northern route" back home (which looks great on the map and goes through states I have never in my life been to - like Montana and Minnesota.) The whole trip is 6,900 miles. (<--Which is like a quarter of the circumference of the Earth or something.)

On one hand we couldn't have picked a worse time to make an epic drive. (Yeah, paying for all that gas? Not so much fun.) On the other hand, we don't have time to bike it (which we want to do someday!) and it's cheaper than flying out there once you take into account not only expensive plane tickets (fuel being dear for the airlines too), having to ship our bikes, renting a car, etc. In the long run, we decided seeing places we've never had a chance to see (like Mt. Rushmore, the Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon) was a great thing to do on the occasion of our upcoming 40th birthdays.

I wish, I wish, I wish I could take the kids with us. (But we'll stop that whiny longing right in it's tracks, shall we?) To recap:
Today: short, hard run
This weekend: long (for most people) run
Coming up: long ass drive

It's 100 degrees here with like 89% humidity or something. I think the weather gods turned the North Carolina dial to "boil" and walked away. Hope everyone else is staying cool and training hard.