Saturday morning came very early for me. I had decided to part from what had become my norm, and to join a group for a masters swim. The venue was the gorgeous Texas Swim Center, and the Tx Aquatics coach that morning was my favorite, Whitney Hedgepeth. I joined Andrea and Jamie (ok, I was too tired to really join them, but I tried) for my first 5000-yrd workout of the year. I'm really taking a different approach to swimming this year. I've been focusing on correcting a few inefficiencies in my stroke, so I've not really pounded out the big, hard sets. This was a struggle for me, but after about an hour, I found myself warming up a bit.

We then went to the Whole Foods flagship. For fear of spending three hours describing this amazing store, I'll just suggest that anyone in the Austin area make the trip over to 5th and Lamar to see it themselves. I had such a great time eating breakie there that I decided to have lunch, dinner, and several desserts there as well: very delicious.

I then made my way over to Cassie's place to join her for a run workout. The plan down in Texas was to make use of all that extra oxygen by running a bit higher on the intensity. Her workout was twice over the Stratford loop (four miles with the first two being very steep hills, and the second two being flat). Her goal: to push the hills and the flat with recovery on all downs. We notched a very fun, and challenging ten miles, satisfied with our times and efforts; it's really a great run, and the venue for the semi-world-famous Fools' Run!

Next up was, of course, lunch at Whole Foods. Yum.

Finally I got out for the same bike ride as Friday: easy yet hilly. This was just right for my tired legs. Todd and Beth were preparing for an early moring at the Austin Marathon and Half, so I headed over to Whole Foods for one final meal, and lots of chocolate!