Training Recap: June Week 1

When we are out of town, like we were for a week around Memorial Weekend, it seems to take me an entire week back home to feel normal again. This week seemed to fly and I felt unproductive everyday, even though I wasn't.

Monday
I tried to run with Brewer while Abigail rode her bike. I really do love that she wants to join me (even if it's killing my average pace on the Nike+ site). This was Abigail's first ride in our neighborhood so we had a lot of instruction discussion. She caught on that if she peddled backwards she can slow herself and stop. It was frustrating because she didn't want to stay near the side of the road and Brewer would pull so she couldn't ride in front of us. For the most part she did well, I did pause my GPS for little breaks but we finished 1.48mi in 29min. My favorite was our little break chatting with an elderly couple down the street. Abigail told the man about our blueberry bushes while he examined some of the vegetables in his garden, and told him we made muffins.

Abigail's Sweaty Pose, her suggestion

Tuesday
We returned to normal activities attending Abigail swim and dance classes. We skipped Food Truck Tuesday because Matt got a couple cavities filled and that just wouldn't be fun for him. I ended up heading out for a neighborhood run with Brewer while Abigail ate dinner. She was not happy with this, but running with both kids isn't something I can (or want to) do everyday. Running is very therapeutic, it clears my head, but when I'm constantly reminding a little girl not to run in the middle of the road and getting pulled along by the crazy puppy, I end up more frustrated after the run than when I started. So I promised Abigail I would take her for a run IF she was finished eating dinner by the time I got back with Brewer. Brewer and I ran 1.5mi and when we got back, we all went back out for another 2/3mi with Abigail. It was a good compromise for everyone.


Wednesday
After a fairly lazy morning, Abigail had afternoon swim then we headed to the gym. I was able to attend the Power Group Fitness class, it's been a good couple weeks since my last Power class. I decided to run a speedy half mile on the treadmill to get my heart rate up before the class started. When we got home, I took Brewer for another mile run.

Since it was National Running Day, I posted on Facebook that I'm running for the kids of St. Jude. I have now made a few smaller announcements that I will be running runDisney's Dopey Challenge in January for St. Jude. I am hoping to make a big blog announcement later this month.


Thursday
Abigail and I ventured to swim and gymnastics classes then came home to take Brewer on his daily run. We ran 2.2mi with a pace of 10.25 and battled the humidity the entire run.

In other news, I reached 600 followers and my first blog giveaway finished! It was so great introducing lots of Twitter friends to Modify Watches and announcing the winner. I still cannot believe it has been FIVE years since Matt started this blog.

Friday
The morning kicked off with my next blog giveaway. Sweaty Bands are a favorite of mine, and from the attention this giveaway received on the first day, I can tell lots of others love Sweaty Bands too!

We met up with a friend in the afternoon at Krispy Kreme for National Doughnut Day. The line was super long but Abigail got her free chocolate iced glazed doughnut with sprinkles. I was quite impressed with her, she ate half then decided she wanted to take the remaining half home for later. I wonder if I'm the only one who thinks it's weird that National Running Day and National Doughnut Day are in the same week?

I ended up at the gym to get my miles in and was limited for time because I reserved Abigail's childcare spot very last minute. I managed to run a sub30 5K on a training run! I still cannot believe it, but love that all my hard work is paying off because I am getting stronger and faster.

Saturday
I had registered to run the Strong4Life Superhero Sprint 5K benefiting Children's Healthcare of Atlanta with a few mom friends from MOPS. When it came down to it, Valerie and I were the only two in attendance. This was a complete 'fun run', it's not a certified course for times or anything so I decided to take this race easy. Valerie has been following the Couch to 5K plan and this was her first 5K "in many, many years" as she said so my plan was to just have fun and run with her. She kept a great pace as we looped around and around Piedmont Park in Atlanta. I hope she'll join me for more races in the future, it's so much fun having friends running too.

Sunday
After church I took Brewer for a run around the neighborhood. The weather called for some rain so Abigail stayed home and that was good too because it started misting only .25mi into our run. Slowly the mist turned into rain then got really heavy the last .25mi back to the house. In so many ways I feel like I am still a rookie runner and I can count every time I have run in the rain on one hand. It is refreshing, not nearly as miserable as I always expected. Even with the rain, we ran 1.3mi in under 14 minutes.

Questions:
-Did you participate in National Running Day or National Doughnut Day?
-Do you like running in the rain?