Hope you had a great Thanksgiving week! Mine was adventurous, relaxing, and productive. Just perfect! We took a little trip, hosted family, saw friends and ran some miles.
- Miles run = 25.5
Monday – No running, a little hiking and a cave tour. We spent a few days in Kentucky at Mammoth Cave National Park. The weather was actually quite nice, but that doesn’t matter because the caves are a constant 54 degrees! And it didn’t matter if it’s raining, or snowing. Always the same in the caves. Given that I’m a bit claustrophobic, spelunking was a big deal and I’m happy to report that I didn’t have a panic attack! 🙂
Tuesday – No running, but a bit of hiking. Toured a cave! Despite being in the hotel, I kept up with my PT exercises! But eww, did not lay on the carpet directly.
Wednesday – 4 miles, treadmill. It was a long day of working and shopping. I got called in to work on an emergency project for a few hours, and then we went to Ikea shopping. Ikea is 90 mins from our house, so it’s a trip. It’s so exhausting with all of the great options and displays they have! Sensory and option overload for me. Ugh. I needed to sweat a little, so I hit the treadmill when we got home. We had winds of 35+ mph outside, no thanks.
Thursday – 7 miles total. Turkey Trot with our friends, ran 4 miles. I’m part of the “Nerd Herd” running group and we met at the park on Thanksgiving morning. We all ran varying distances, and then pigged out on the large potluck of food. I say pigged out because my plate was pretty much just full of cake. Hey, what can I say? If someone brings cake (several of them!!), I’m eating it, regardless of the meal. There were many healthy choices though, and I confess I had cake AND scrambled eggs.
As the day progressed, I got antsy and needed to burn off some pent up energy. 3 more miles. Do you ever do this? – “so many things to do, I guess I’ll go for a run!!”
We had a good Thanksgiving dinner with my parents too – who happened to be celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary that day. Congrats to them!!
Friday – 7.16 miles. I had to giggle a bit when I saw my distance on my watch. I was just running with the heart rate screen the whole time so I didn’t know what the total was going to be. I keep giving the HR training runs a try because I know several people who have had great results with much slower “every day” runs. I still hit zone 4 more than I thought I did, but it was up to 4.1 at the highest, so most of those were 4.0.
And yes, I’m still eating cake. Leftover coffee cake from Thanksgiving 🙂
Later, I even made it to the gym. Yeah me!
Saturday – 5K race! The Holiday Hustle. This was an evening race, so no running in the morning 🙁 I did a whole bunch of cross training in the form of decorating the house for Christmas though! My cat is already being naughty…
The race went well. 26:03 was my time, which was good enough for 2nd in my age group (out of 16). Awards were ornaments. My daughter won 1st in her age group, 24:46. My son ran with me for most of the race, until the last half a mile when he clearly still had more in the tank so I told him to just go. 25:43 for him, in a highly competitive age group (sorry, no award!)
Unfortunately my husband could not run due to his foot pain (maybe PF?). He has agreed to go to see our sports Dr as soon as he can get in to get some clarification and direction on this issue!
Sunday – 4 miles, recovery. I decided to take another stab at the heart rate run. Oddly, when I saw my zone go to 4.1 I decided to walk to get it down, but it actually spiked up!! what the heck? For the most part the run went well. Nice to get my legs moving.
Need some more inspiration? I’m linking up with Deborah at Confessions of a Mother Runner and Kim from Running on the Fly for their Weekly Run Down. Check out all of the fun blogs there!
Q: Anyone train using Heart Rate? Did it take you a while to get into your zone??
Q: Have you ever been to Mammoth Cave, or toured other caves?
Q: Do you have any animals (or little kids!) that get into the Christmas decorations?
I have never used HRT but a friend tried it once and took him the better part of a year to get his heart rate down and be able to run a decent pace. I love Mammoth Cave. I took the tour a couple of years ago on a road trip from Chicago to Atlanta. Guides turned off the flashlights and it is REALLY dark in there! No kids, no pets, and no Christmas decorations.
The lights turning off was the part of the tour I was NOT looking forward to, but it turned out OK. On our first tour someone brought along very small kids who cried a bit. Not sure why people think that’s a good idea!
When we were going through a very narrow passage, one of the visitors cracked his head open on a sharp rock protruding from the ceiling. A guide had to walk him out which left us with only one guide and ONE flashlight. Kind of spooky at the back of the line. I kept looking over my shoulder.
Love the ornament as an award! Very cool. Awesome week for you!
The ornaments are different every year, which is cool. One year my daughter won one that lights up and flashes. Very unique! I think the race also encouraged my daughter to start working on her fitness again, for the upcoming track season. As for me? It just made me curse short, fast races. haha!!
Awesome job this week on your workouts and Happy anniversary to your parents – they are so cute!
I haven’t tried heart rate training yet but I’m very curious about it. I want to learn more before trying it but I think it would be beneficial for me.
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I have no idea why my Dad refuses to smile for pictures anymore. He’s really a happy guy – which does not look like it from the picture!!
One friend follows Matt Fitzgerald’s plan for heart rate training, and another recommended this one: https://philmaffetone.com/want-speed-slow-down/
I’m just very loosely dipping my toes into it!
You sure did have a really busy week! Congrats on the 5k and way to keep up those PT exercises. Happy Anniversary to your parents. Thanks for linking and have a fantastic week
I always grumble about the PT exercises, but right now they are super quick so I just suck it up! Glancing ahead in the plan I’ve noticed I’m going to be spending quite a bit more time doing them.
I was going to ask you if you thought buying the ebook was worth it?
Yes, I think so. It wasn’t a ton of money, so I overlook a few typos in it. There are arm exercises, which I didn’t see the connection to the injury, but a little extra exercises aren’t going to hurt me. There are good pictures of the exercises, and it is giving me a reason to do the exercises every day. I’ve definitely had more good days than bad days lately! I’m just started “phase 2” (of 4 I think), so it will get a bit more challenging from here.
good to know thanks!
Great job on the 5K! I have never done HR training, but have heard it works well for most people…I’m just not too keen on resetting my Garmin (which may not even have the HR option??) and trying to master that (I’m a tech idiot LOL). And that’s a lame excuse, I know. Ever since getting Max, this is our 5th Christmas with him, I don’t put out our tree skirts under our trees (unless we have company) because I’m paranoid he’d pee on them. My tree skirts are handmade (with lots of delicate embroidering), so they’re high-maintenance to clean. So…he’s not necessarily being bad (he’s never actually peed on them), but I’m not willing to test the waters on that.
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We have a new Christmas tree and my cat (the black one!) climbs up on the branches to get the ornaments… which bends the tree branches. We are always on high alert as to her whereabouts!
I never met a cat that didn’t love Christmas decorations. “Nerd Herd” hee hee…the best meals are desserts.
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The Nerd Herd was named long before I joined it, but my husband and I do fit in nicely! 😉
Those cave tours and hiking sound fun! I have tried some heart rate training and it definitely took a while to get to the right place with getting my heart rate to stay in the right zone. I have noticed a delay in the heart rate information so maybe the spike in the heart rate when you walked was still delayed information from when you were running?
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I know the wrist HR monitors aren’t the most accurate, and I refuse to drag out my chest strap (ewww, the chaffing!). It just seemed like such a cruel joke to have it spike like that!
I forgot to mention we saw a bat in the cave (just resting) and a tiny cave salamander (so cute!!!).
We’re Jewish, so the cats were never a problem at Hannukah. 🙂 But we did have to make sure they stayed away from the light candles. The dogs don’t get up on the table.
There are several caves in this area that I went to multiple times when I was a kid, and one that we went to once in TX — but they’re both pretty open in the cave, so no problems.
We have a night 5k this weekend & it’s gonna be a cold one!
I hope your race went well! It was a bit of challenge to get my kids to gear up to run the 5K at night, but once they got going they were fine. They were motivated by the delicious cookies and hot chocolate afterwards!!
oh wow, what a great week! I’ve never been spelunking but I lived in NM for quite some years growing up (from about 10 – 18) and I’ve been to Carlsbad Caverns a few times. Several years ago I even took Ron and the kids there. They loved it.
I love the name of your running group LOL!
We live too close to Ikea for comfort. And we always say “should we go there for and just go in and out?” and it never happens.
our cats are always so naughty around the holidays!! too many shiny fun things for them.
I have trained on HR many times, but I’m a slow runner so it’s not so hard for me to stay slow and in the zone.
Great racing for you and the kids!! Sorry to hear about hubby’s foot 🙁
I have never been to Carlsbad Caverns but I’d love to go! We have been on an informal quest to visit all of the National Parks lately, so I’m sure it will pop up on my radar one of these days!
Ooh you would have NOT got me in that cave! Eeps! I will go in the entrance to one but not all squashed up. And the Nerd Herd – love it! It’s been fun reading about people’s Thanksgivings.
I get a little anxious just thinking about the caves again… I’m glad it went well! I really thought I wasn’t going to be able to go in with the family. We did visit a park in Mexico a few years ago that had a dark attraction. I couldn’t do it. I had to leave after about 15 seconds in there!!
Check your HR versus your run cadence. If you are continually getting a value for HR that is the same or similar to your cadence, you may have an incomplete “sync” between the optical HR monitor in the watch and your actual pulse.
Solutions include tighter watch band, and moving the watch off the more bony area of the wrist to get better connection.
I think I only have bony areas on my wrist 🙂 This is an interesting thought. I will investigate!