The Ducks Didn't Seem to Mind

In case some of you haven't noticed it has been raining a lot here in Washington lately.  There has been flood watches on a lot of the local rivers.  Tons and tons of rain.  Except when I looked at the Weather Channel- it was saying sunshine Friday (yesterday) and only 10% chance of rain.  That sounded promising so I decided that would be the day to take the kids to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.  And since we didn't have a soccer game that night, heck lets have a BBQ too!  So I invited people over for dinner and rounded up my friend Sarah and her son Evan to go to the zoo with us and it was going to be a great, non rainy day!!!

Devan, Evan, random kid in yellow jacket and Niko

I woke up Friday morning to RAIN!  Lots and lots of rain- buckets full of rain falling from the sky.  I came up with three possible reasons for the really bad, completely inaccurate prediction of the weather.   

1.  The weather channel was playing an April Fool's joke on us.  Haha, good one!
2.  I misread it and it actually said there was a 10% chance it would rain 100% of the day
3.  Predicting the weather is in fact just really difficult

I think this giraffe was checking to see if it was still raining

Whatever the actual answer is, we were troopers and went to the zoo, in the pouring down rain.  We had fun despite being cold and wet the entire time, and the kids were troopers.  We had a few good laughs and saw lots of animals.  Some of the animals were huddled up out of the rain, looking about as thrilled as we were that it was raining.  And some of them didn't even seem to notice at all.  One of the best parts was as we were leaving and Evan was being pokey to catch up.  Niko was trying to round him up but was not having any luck so Sarah hollered at him really loudly and he came running.  Niko walked past Sarah, looked at her and said "you have a really big voice".  It was classic, we had a good laugh at that one!

What, I like snakes!

This gorilla was awesome- he was doing a workout the entire time we watched!

Niko the tour guide showing Evan our next move

The commute home in rainy, Friday rush hour traffic was a real treat- I think it was twice as long as the trip up.  We had time to clean up a bit and then it was BBQ time!  There was no end in sight for the rain so the boys bbq'd outside while the rest of everybody hung out in the house.  It was a fun time and the first BBQ of the season.  Even if it got rained out! 

Today was the Jr. Daffodil Parade.  Devan signed up to walk in it, like she did last year so we headed down the road first thing this morning.  The parade started at 10am and it was the 50th anniversary this year so that was pretty cool.  She walked with her friend Stella and the rest of her elementary school.  Aren't these girls goofy???

After that I was scheduled for a 10 mile run and later in the day- a MASSAGE!!!  My wonderful hubby actually called and scheduled a one hour sports massage for me.  I set off for my 10 miles glad it wasn't raining- however it was really windy and kind of cold!  So I wore capri tights, a running skirt, a tech tshirt and my running jacket.  I still felt a bit chilly but knew that I would warm up once I got going.  Well, guess who decided to make an appearance about 2 miles into my run?  Mr. Sunshine!  So I was dressed too warmly and was kind of hot.  However, the wind never let up.  It felt like resistance running- like somebody had their hands on my shoulders and was pushing against me.  It also made breathing kind of tricky and at times I questioned whether I was, in fact, moving. 

I tried to keep my pace between 9:20 and 9:30.  I feel like this is a good long distance pace for me and I want to be able to hold and maintain it with some degree of accuracy without having to look at my garmin every 60 seconds.  I did pretty good today, my time for 10 miles was 1:33 for a pace of 9:21.  I find I naturally run faster now, which I find exciting.  I don't have to think about it any more, my pace has just gotten quicker.  My mileage is increasing rapidly at this point so I am probably going to tone down the speed work a notch.  I don't want to risk an injury at this point and feel like I have made a lot of progress towards getting to a pace I am happy with.

My massage was amazing.  Just what I had been needing!  He worked on my legs mostly, and also the arches on my feet apparently need a lot of work.  He said my muscles respond well to massage and was able to really loosen up the knots.  I asked him if some people have muscles that don't respond well to massage and he said yes, all the time.  I am glad my muscles are well trained haha.  I am rebooked in a few weeks and can't wait!