Thank Goodness for Conor

This post is split into 2 reasons to thank Conor ... A note about the home improvements first: spent most of last weekend working on landscaping our yard.  Our house has a pretty good sized yard.  The landscaping sucks, it was not well maintained nor planned.  But, like the house itself, the "bones" are good.  We have an in ground sprinkler system, though much of it didn't work or was buried under grass.  Our grass is full of weeds, big ones.  We had a decent amount of perennial flowers, but they were bunched up together in really badly placed beds.  The backyard is a huge mess - leaves, poor grading resulting in standing water, a central air unit partially covered in dirt and down spout drain pipes that were ineffective.  Despite all the "mess" the potential is definitely there.  So after a few weeks of slowly making some small changes, we are now in full landscaping mode.  We've extended a flower bed across the front of the house - which requires grass removal.  Note to self - grass removal sucks and is better left to men. 
We've added a bed around our pretty crabapple tree in the front yard - which reduces the amount of grass that requires mowing.  Both of these beds are now de-weeded and mulched!  We've dug a path from our driveway to the door.  We've regraded a portion of the backyard, cleaned out around the central air unit, built a retaining wall and created a large bed for bushes and other plants near our back patio.  We've transplatted 2 azaleas and brought 1 back to life!  We've created a section on the side of the house for our trash cans (out of sight and tucked away) and we've dug up a huge pile of flat stones buried amongst grass in the backyard that can be used for our walkway! 
Here's where I should stop and say "we" mostly means Conor.  I'll admit, he's been talking for years about he knows how to do all sorts of landscaping "stuff" and how he used to be good at it back in HS and College, but until now I have never really seen him in action.  That man has some wicked landscaping skills.  I've never seen him move so quickly.  He pretty much accomplished all of the above in the same amount of time it took me to do the "deweeding and mulching" part.  Thank goodness for Conor!  And despite the mess, the yard is already transforming!

Now onto training.  Its less than 12 months until CDA, so given Evan's 6 days per week advice, I've been working hard to maintain an active schedule.  With Conor in training, this isn't too hard to do!  He's motivation right there!  So last Saturday morning we did another open water swim at Goguac Lake.  The morning was beautiful again, water was warm, but comfortable.  I began swimming and was with most of the "moderate" paced women when one of them yelled to stop me - telling me we didn't need to go any further.  I was confused because at the start I thought we had agreed to swim to a point on the shore where I could see a few swimmers were standing waiting for the rest of the crew to catch up before heading back.  I was convinced for a few minutes to stop and turn back until I stopped again, telling myself, "No, I wanted to swim to the white boat and I'm going to".  So I took off again, heading toward the group of "fast" swimmers who had already made it there.  I was the last one to arrive and had a chance to use Conor's shoulders as a resting pole so I didn't have to put my feet down in the muck!  I hate the muck!  I can swim through weeds with no problem, but feet in muck really grosses me out!  A short rest at the white boat, then headed back to the beach.  Of course, I was the last out of the water, but felt good about doing the extra distance and keeping what felt like a pretty nice line through the water, despite having no buoys.  I did feel quite a bit of lower back discomfort.  I need to research that and see what I'm doing wrong in the water to cause that.  While Conor was on a long ride I did landscaping at the house.

Sunday, we landscaped in the morning, then hit the bikes for an afternoon ride sometime after 3.  This is my 3rd time on my bike since late March, but I wanted to do something moderately long.  We ended up riding west of town through Augusta to Gull Lake, a loop around the lake, then home.  In total the ride was 45 miles and we averaged exactly 17 mph according to Conor's info.  I had to work hard to keep up with him and stay on his wheel for help.  Did pretty well the first 1/3 of the ride, then up and down a bit in the middle 1/3, then really fell off in the last 1/3.  But at this point, I don't really care too much, just need to get the miles and time in.  Biggest issue was shoulder, back and neck pain.  Its distracting.  My legs were pretty cashed and my lower back hurt from the swim and yard work.  But overall, my legs didn't feel "weak", just tired.  I feel hopeful because on that hill in Oceanside they felt "weak" AND "tired".