July 5 - July 11, 2011

The end of the trip thr0ugh the Baltic States with Dad was amazingly beautiful and relaxing. We stayed on Muhu Island, off the coast of Estonia for two nights at a place called Padaste Manor. It was fabulous.
Tuesday July 5th - I did a long run but only got 10 miles in on the island since I didn't know the area and didn't want to get lost, which I was pretty bummed about, I really had wanted to do 11-12, but oh well!

Wednesday we headed back to Vilnius, which was about a 7 hour drive, had a great dinner in old town, then flew home on Thursday. It was a rough trip back, 30 hours of total travel time, and I was exhausted to say the least. Friday I got in at 12:30 a.m., slept until 5:00 a.m., thought I was going to get up and go to work, but decided to sleep a bit more, so slept until 8:15 a.m.
I headed into work just to get into the routine and was proud of myself for feeling pretty good. Then........................... it all hit me. I went down to Lewiston to get my hair done around 4:00 on Friday and could barely stay away, don't really remember the drive back up to Pullman, oops. I had planned on biking with Kerry that evening but that wasn't to be. I headed to my couch, fell asleep by 7:00 or so after a Swilly's salmon dinner brought to me by Brady :-)
Saturday morning I slept until 9:22 a.m., I was shocked! I had a raging headache but knew I needed to get up and ride and swim that day. Luckily Kerry texted and she was ready to go!

Saturday - biked 14 miles, napped, then swam about 800 yds

Sunday - Ran 21 miles!!! It was perhaps one of the hardest runs I've ever done, but I got through it, thanks to Kerry and Denise (who did 10 miles by the way!!!) I was doing okay, mile 16 & 17 (which were mostly uphill) were very tough and it was hot out, then the last 2.5 miles Kerry came back to check on me and I told her I needed company the rest of the way which she did and that helped tremendously. But it's in the books, my last long run before the Marathon on July 30th!

Monday - OFF, my feet are killing me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm excited for this weekend's triathlon and nervous at the same time, just about the swim part. I hope I do okay.

As for food, the Baltic States had some interesting stuff!!! My favorite meal of it all over there was their Cold Beet Soup or Cold Borsch, Rugile's Mom made it for us and OMG it was heavenly! Here is the recipe if anyone is interested, as you know beets are full of antioxidants!! I use 1% milk with lemon juice to curdle it, to cut down on the calories, but it's just not the same...

1 lb. RED BEETS
2 CUCUMBERS
3 HARD BOILED EGGS
2 C. SOUR CREAM
4 C. BUTTERMILK
2 SCALLIONS
FRESH DILL
SALT

Cook whole beets, cool and peel them. Peel and grate coarsely. Peel cucumbers, cut into squares. Chop hard boiled eggs and scallions.
Mix everything together and pour in the buttermilk, then add the sour cream and salt to taste. Stir well and refrigerate until cool.
Traditionally this soup is served with cooked young potatoes sprinkled with some dill and salt (I add fresh garlic to it as well!)

Yummy!!!

Happy Training All!

The last 2 weeks in the Baltics....

Well to say it's been a great trip is an understatement, it's been amazing. I got a couple of 3, 3.5, 4.5 and 5 mile runs in while in Vilnius and Alytus (where conference was) but it's been hard, we've been sightseeing so much and running around, getting runs in has been hard, BUT I've done it and am happy with that.

These countries are beautiful, the day after the conference, Rugile, Saulius and Arimas took us all on a kayaking adventure down a river outside of Alytus, it was a 5 hour kayak trip and it was fun, buggy, and beautiful! I was sore the next day!!!

Rugile's family hosted us twice for dinner at their summer house and that was so much fun, we ate great food, told lots of stories and just had a great time.

On Saturday morning, Erica and Lindsay left and Dad and I drove from Vilnius to Palanga, Lithuania, where we saw the Amber Museum and the Sea. From there we drove to Riga, Latvia and stayed overnight, it's a great city full of history, museums (went to the WWII Occupation Museum, very sad but worth it to see). We ate some Latvian food and drove off to Tallinn, Estonia. That is a great old medieval city but OMG, DO NOT DRIVE THERE!! We had some adventures driving through it (3 times...) and trying to find our hotel. Finally I told Dad to just stop, park and I'd walk into Old Town and find it, that worked better....

So we had a good dinner, walked around the square which was full of street performers and tourists, got some ice cream and went to bed. Woke up and ran almost 4 miles through Old Town, got some breakfast, walked around a bit more and then proceeded to TRY to get out of Tallinn, it took us 90 minutes to go roughly 9 miles, yikes!

From Tallinn we drove 2 hours to Virtsu, Estonia, where we got on the ferry to Muhu Islands! It's truly a beautiful place here, we are staying at Padaste Manor (a simple luxury hotel) on the Baltic Sea, and it's amazing, a great end to our trip. It's so much like Southeast Alaska with more sun, it's crazy.

I'm about to attempt to run 11-12 miles so wish me luck! After I get back, Brady will run the Missoula Half Marathon, then I have my first Tri about 10 days after I arrive back in the States, then two weeks after that is my full marathon! I hope I'm ready, but I wouldn't have traded this trip for anything. If I bonk though, please remind me that I said that........

Happy Training All!