Welcome to the new-looking blog! I still have some adjustments to make, but for now, I’m going with it! Hopefully I’ll be here for a bit 🙂 So sorry if you received a 2nd email about last week’s post. The comments from last post didn’t transfer over either, but I did read and reply to all of them. Onwards and upwards! This week had a lot of holiday fun and I ran almost 26 miles this week and did a lot of strength workouts (and gym visits).
Mon – 4 miles, treadmill. At night I attended the coaches meeting for the 2024 Dave’s Running spring marathon (and half marathon!) training program. I will be a sub coach again this season. It’s a great group!
Tues – 4.5 miles, “song intervals”. For each song I either ran fast, or slow! It was supposed to be a Christmas playlist but I enjoyed listening to my own music instead. I’ve been listening to so many books lately it was quite a treat to listen to music again. I just finished the Britney Spears book, The Woman In Me. Have you read it?? I would definitely be team “Free Britney” after hearing her take on the situation.
In the afternoon we drove to Columbus to hear the Ohio State concert band (well, one of the concert bands. There are several!). This might be my son’s last concert because he is not taking band in the spring. There are just too many other groups he wants to join and band is a scheduling conflict. I don’t blame him, but I’ll miss seeing him perform. We did get to see a few lights downtown before we drove back home.
Weds – 2.5 mile walk. I didn’t meet up with my Mom but I still walked at the park after work. I visited the Manor House and checked out the holiday train display.
Thurs – 5 miles. For some reason this run felt hard. I wasn’t pushing the pace or anything, but it was just rough. My Garmin noticed too! When I saved my run I got a notification that my max heart rate had been set (192!) and my Evidation app told me it “noticed there was a change in my data. Are you feeling OK today?”. Oof!! Glad to see my devices care so much about my well being 🙂 My “Joy to the Run” training plan (from Another Mother Runner) had a live strength session today so I joined in. Fun!
Then it was time for one more trip to the Manor house to look at the decorations with my Mom. My Dad isn’t mobile enough to go, so it was just us girls. It was 50 degrees outside and the place was packed! Everyone was enjoying the beautiful weather.
Fri – 3 miles. My watch told me to rest today, but I wanted to run because I was going to see my physical therapist to talk about some concerns I had about my hip still feeling a bit off. She gave me some exercises to help and did a bit of “posture corrections” (my term, not hers!). She often cringes when she sees how out of alignment my hips and shoulders are. I need to work on these things so I can have a strong 2024 race season!! I tried by best to keep my HR down, and also to see the sunrise, and I kind of succeeded at both tasks 😂
We visited the holiday lights at the Toledo Zoo. My pictures don’t do it justice! They do an amazing job with it. It usually gets a 1st place award for a national zoo lights contest.
We wrapped up our date night with a trip to TGI Fridays and had some Christmas Ale. I think the last time we went to Fridays was before we had kids and used to go to happy hour with our coworkers!!
Sat – 9 miles, long run. Today was a casual meetup with Dave’s Running. My husband will be in the marathon training plan for the 2024 Glass City Marathon. It was 50 degrees. What a morning for a run! It started out great, but didn’t end so well. We both ran with different groups and unfortunately didn’t have a meet up plan. We had no idea how far the other was running, and only one of us had a phone, and the car key. When I ended my run I found a very cold, unhappy husband waiting for me 🙁 [sorry Alan!!! We will do better next time]
After the mess up we went to the gym and I did my new PT exercises. The massage chair felt great! The rest of the day was spent doing some Christmas stuff, like making our traditional Christmas coffee cake. Yum! At night we went to a drive through nativity scene at a school. It was cute and they did a great job!
Sunday… rest day!!! That 9 mile run yesterday may have been a bit much for my current fitness level!
Well, it looks like I gave my new blog a workout with all of these pictures. It’s a good test 🙂 I’m glad you’ve made it this far!!
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: Have you read the Britney Spears book?
I also read a book by John Stamos this past week. I think the Britney one was better. Quite interesting!
That was a busy week! There’s a small zoo in Des Moines, but I don’t think they do holiday lights (?), though they have a lot of other seasonal events. I’m envious of your massage chair relaxation!
Those hydromassage beds at Planet Fitness are well worth the membership upgrade price. LOVE them!
I like the new look of the blog! I think I can put pictures side-by-side on my theme as well, but haven’t done it in ages (actually, I’d forgotten all about it). I just might have to be a copycat. 😉
Poor Alan! That happened to my husband once when I decided to run a marathon for fun with a friend and he ran it for time and finished about 45 minutes ahead of me. He was very cold!
The “gallery” view was one of my requirements for the theme, but it is missing a “featured” post picture. I’m bummed about that. Might need to change it up!
Today (Sunday) is turning out well. You’ll appreciate this – there was BOGO sale at the bike shop! Yes, one was free. And YES, I did get a new bike. yayyyyyyy!!!!
OMG, that’s amazing, congrats! What did you get?
My husband and I both got new road bikes – Trek Emonda SLR 6! They are sweeeeeet!
My hips are apparently often out of alignment as well. Maybe that’s just how my body is?! Your blog looks good. I don’t know how to do any of those updates myself. I got an alert from Garmin once telling me my HR was high on a day I was not even wearing the watch! So weird and wondering how accurate those are!
I forgot to mention that my Garmin said I had hit 207 as my max HR on that run! That does seem extra high, but overall it did feel like a hard run. My Evidation app thought maybe I was starting to get sick. Thankfully that was not the case.
Congrats on the new blog! It looks great!
TGIFriday’s!!! I haven’t seen one of those in years! Was it any good?
I feel like the zoos are all doing gorgeous lights. l’d like to check out the Jax Zoo this season but don’t know if I can fit it in.
I did read the Britney Spears book. It was horrifying. I would have liked it to be a little more deep, but I also don’t know if I could have handled it.
That has to be bittersweet for your son to stop band. I can’t imagine that day!
It was funny being at Fridays. We aren’t sure how it stays in business because it wasn’t busy when we went. I’ve heard that Toledo is a test market location for many restaurants because we have so many restaurants here, so people are definitely dining elsewhere!
I didn’t realize Britney was so in love with Justin. Crazy family dynamics and history. Yikes!
I’d be more interested in John Stamos, but I just started Barbra Streisand’s memoir (on Audible). At 48 hours it’s going to keep me occupied a long time!
Oh no on the no meetup plan! That can be ugly, but it takes two to tango after all.
Glad things settled down! I had that one weird morning where my body battery was the lowest it’s been since I got this watch (by a lot) but I took my rest seriously and it’s happier now. It’s fascinating to me though — it verifies what I’ve known forever — this time of year just drains me no matter what I do (well, it feels that way).
48 hours?? Wow! That would be very interesting though I think.
The health metrics from watches and apps are very interesting – my watch seems to be happy when I start running fast, but after the run it tells me I need a lot of rest. It never seems to be happy with a slow pace run initially.
I love the new blog! Now can you come to my house and help me re-do mine???
That “song interval” workout sounds really fun, and I’m going to do it this week with Christmas music. The only kind of “speedwork” I’ve been doing lately is fartlek-style, because any time I do something more organized I seem to hurt myself (sigh.)
I love all the holiday festivities this week. Where’s your black kitten (was it Camden?) Is he still with you?
Camden is heading back to the shelter on Tuesday. I will miss him, but my hands will be happy LOL! Those claws 😆
Hopefully my blog has settled. I had a lot of backend things to straighten out and a few things aren’t connected yet. Stressful!!
I didn’t even realize that TGIFriday’s still existed. We recently saw Date Night for the first time–not sure how we missed it back in the day–and until I saw the movie, I never realized that all those pins the servers wear on their suspenders were called flare. I have a bunch of pins I wear on my work lanyard–the kids love them– so now I refer to them as flare, lol
I hope your hubs didn’t have to wait too long for your group to finish the run! I love the new blog layout!
I got a gift certificate for Fridays, which prompted us to go. I don’t think we would have went back otherwise. Not much happening there!!
I think Alan may have said he was waiting for “a million f&*%*^ing minutes”… but he could have been exaggerating due to his frigid extremities. (haha, it was 52 degrees, but you know, not a comfortable temp if you are sweaty!)
Isn’t it nice to freshen up the blog now and then? Did you move it somewhere else too?
That looks like a really fun week with a lot of activities, I love all the Christmas decor! What a bummer about the “cold husband event”.
I haven’t heard of that Britney Spears book, perhaps I should check it out!
My new Garmin hasn’t complained much yet, but sometimes it starts telling me I’m stressed – like when I use my stand-up desk and do my single leg balance exercise while working. And my sleep score is really off and doesn’t sync at all with how I’m feeling.
I moved to a new hosting provider. My fabulous promo deal ($99 for 3 years) switched to $502 for 3 years when it renewed! I gagged over that, and moved it to another cheap promo deal provider 😆 I’m going to have to settle down one of these years (but not in the next 3 years!). It has been a great learning experience overall.
I love all the pictures of the lights! I was dreading going to the physio today as I have not been doing my exercises (or running much at all, though) – all was OK, phew. No new scar tissue in my hamstring, or pain, and she “freed” my glute which hurt like mad but feels a lot better. AND she told me I’m not allowed to up my running if I don’t do my exercises. I am very obedient, so having been told that will help me do them!
Those glute releases are grueling, but yes, feels oh-so-good when it’s done. I’m starting to wonder if I should go see a chiropractor every so often for some sort of alignment. I’ve never done that, but it seems like it would be helpful!
Keep on those exercises so you can get back out there!!
Oh gosh, what a little mix-up with the husband! Dustin never runs with a phone so I could see that happening to us.
It seems like you’re setting yourself up for a strong racing season in 2024! I think my sister who is in Columbus just took my dad and her fam to the zoo lights. Very cool!
Enjoy those warm temps!
That whole mess up with the group run was really just dumb on both of our parts, so equally at fault. Live and learn! I did see some pics of the Columbus Zoo lights. They were very good too!
Ugh, sorry, you wrote Toledo and I read Columbus zoo, ha! But looked very similar 🙂
Love the new blog look! Very modern!
Your new blog layout looks great. I like it 🙂
Sorry, if I asked you this before, what Garmin do you have? I am looking to upgrade (soon-ish). I love my Fr235 and it’s still going strong (it’s 7 years old) but it’s missing some of the newer features.
The light show at the zoo looks amazing in the pictures, but I am sure it was even better in person!
It’s a Forerunner 265S (smaller size) I love it!