If you’re a fan of just scrolling through pictures, then this post is for you! It was Spring Break and my week was packed full of activity. Although I’m sad this week of family fun has ended, my body will probably be thanking me LOL. I had a top mileage week of training for the Glass City Half marathon (35 miles run), I biked a few times, went to the climbing gym a few times, and just enjoyed having both of my kids around. My house and heart was full.
Luck of the Irish this week?? Before we get into the workout rundown, let’s talk Wordle! On Thursday, THIS happened!! I said “Oh, I have a good word for today!” because I rarely use the same starter word. Next thing I know, all the letters were green!! Yes, I guessed Wordle in one try! I’m sure that will never happen again, so I’m still basking in the glory of that accomplishment.
Mon – 5 miles, treadmill. Nothing to see here, but I did get to enjoy dinner with both kids and my mom. It was great family time.
Tues – 8.25 miles, with pace miles. Overall this was a great run. I got to see a pretty sunrise, and hit my paces. That deserved a jump shot!
12.5 miles biking. Since my butt was finally feeling better from last week’s ride, I decided to try putting a gel seat cover on my new bike. Guess what? It was a winner!! I felt so much better after this ride. I’m so happy this was such an easy fix.
And, to wrap up my night I went to the climbing gym. I met my daughter there and my son came along with a few of his friends. Good times were had by all. I’m always in awe of the kid’s skills.
Weds – Wednesday Walk happened at lunch time with my mom, and then it was Track Night! The weather was perfect for our first track night – 70 degrees!! On tap for tonight was 6 x 800m with a warm up and cool down. If I had to pinpoint where most of my fatigue came from this week I’d say it was this workout. I ended up being the fastest coach in the group, which meant running with some guys. I made the mistake of pushing my pace and each 800 was around 8:05 pace. The guys were faster than me so I just did my own pacing. I will try to avoid that in the future and hang with some slower runners! I think speedwork tends to be my downfall and angers the glutes and hammies.
Thurs – I had originally scheduled my long run for this morning, but my body just said “oh hell no!” Long run will need to be rescheduled. We did have something fun on tap though – mountain biking! First we went to the Cleveland Art Museum, which is quite large. We only saw a portion of the art and I definitely want to go back.
The other half of the day was at Ray’s Mountain Bike park. We always have a good time at Ray’s and today was no exception. We finally got our Shamrock shakes too. Cheers! It was a late night.
Fri – 12 miles, long run. It was time to get this run done. I’m shocked at how well it went, especially given my fatigue at this point. I just took it slow and easy and stopped for some pictures 🙂 Part of my route was flooded, so I meandered a bit.
My evening workout was a “Learn the Ropes” class in which my daughter and I learned the skills for top rope certification at the climbing gym. We have gone through this class a few years ago, but we definitely needed a refresher. Soon we shall be certified. I was a bit bummed that this 90 mins class was all instruction and I didn’t get to climb, so after dinner we went back to the gym. Yep, I went to the climbing gym at 9pm and climbed for an hour until they closed! That meant hardly anyone was there and we got some personalized instruction.
One of the gym employees gave me tips and encouragement to make it all the way to the top of the yellow route shown in this picture. My arms were toast and I was sweating by the time I made it up to the top. Woohoo!
Sat – 4.5 miles, tempo run. We had 2 miles of “tempo pace”, which I kept at a 9 min pace. I was feeling pretty beat up after this run and heck, might have even skipped this if I wasn’t coaching. My inner quad muscle is feeling tight and I’m in need of a rest day. I opted for 20 mins in the hydromassage chair and lots of stretching when I got home.
We went to see the new baby elephant at the Toledo Zoo but we missed the exhibit time. As you can imagine, the zoo was packed to see the new little guy on this beautiful day. What a cutie!!!
We ended our week with some ice cream and game time. Ahhhh, soaking it all in.
Sun – The week has flown by too fast, and now it’s time to take our son back to college. Waaaa! I think time will fly even faster and he’ll be back home for summer break, so I’ll keep thinking about that.
My biggest challenge of the upcoming weeks will be determining the lesser of two evils… should I do my long run the morning after track night (Thurs), a day before our tempo run (Fri), or maybe push it back to Sunday (which seems to mess up the whole week). This might be a decision that is made based on how I’m feeling Thursday morning again! At least it’s nice to have some flexibility.
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 else having a lucky week? Good things happening?
What a great week! Wow on your Wordle guess!
That’s one advantage of not using one of those special words people say to always start with.
I can only do a long run on the weekend, so I don’t have much choice!
It is nice to have flexibility, but I’m kind of caught between a rock and a hard place on trying to prioritize some recovery time between hard workouts! A night track session makes it tough.
Looks like lots of family fun this week! I always use the same starting word-stare. That “since” threw me off lol nice job
My guess was crazy amazing. I’m sure it will never happen again!
Wow great job on wordle! I used to always start with ADIEU but gave switched to SLATE, which helped on Since day! Nice job this week otherwise. I almost never have time for long runs on the weekend bc of all our kid activities so I get up EARLY on weekdays and do it before anyone is awake. It’s not ideal but it’s what works for me in my life right now.
I still love to have my long runs completed early in the morning. But, not a fan of running around my neighborhood in the dark for the first hour of my long run either, so there’s that! The early sunrise is definitely one benefit of summer running.
Very cool on the Wordle. That happened to me a while ago–I always use the same starting word, so I guess it was due to happen, lol. I need to pick a new word, right?
I felt very exhausted this week too but like you, I had some great runs and workouts!
Wordle was so unexpected!! I should have bought a lottery ticket too.
Time for your new starter word for sure! Maybe lightning would strike twice 🙂
Wow, it sounds like a fun and exhausting week! Yes, speedwork is always my downfall these days. I think in my case it comes from thinking my paces are faster than they really are right now. And then it does get hard to fit it in with long runs. Like you said, you have some flexibility so that’s good.
This last quarter of the school year really does fly by, so your son will be home again before you know it. But I know- it’s always, always so hard to say goodbye : (
I could really just skip interval training and be fine with pace miles! Hopefully I can get settled in with a better pace next track night.
Summer break will be here soon!
It’s going to be a lonely summer – my son is heading out for a very fun adventure/job. I’ll save that news for a later post in the blog! But we will get a month of family time, and my daughter will be around. I’m looking forward to that!
So I use the same starter word for Wordle and that happened to me! I am sure it will be the one and only but it was pretty neat! Love sunrise runs. You had a really fun week! Our local park is creating a mountain bike trail and it looks like it is going to be really nice. I bike, but not mountain bike so not sure I will try it out, but you never know!
What a cute baby elephant!
My post is bringing out all of the Wordle pros! Very cool that you got a single guess too!
I like that this bike park accommodates all skill levels. For real, there is a room with lines on the ground that you can use to practice biking on a line! And a room with wooden features just a few inches off the ground as you progress. All the way up to huge jumps and features. We saw a grade school kid do a back flip. Crazy! I hope you are able to try out the one near you when it’s done!
Dang, nonstop action! And, bonus points for all that family time 😉 I am so impressed with all your climbing! Nothing like that in my local area…maybe that will soon be changing in a couple weeks 😉
If you do get the chance to try climbing, do it! I think you’d like it. It’s been such a fun activity to do with my kids.
That looks like a fun week with a lot of different activities. I’m impressed with your climbing as usual. How fun to enjoy that last hour of the gym with almost no other people! I’m a bit confused about those ropes – what are they for?
Susanne recently posted…Keeping up the good work
The gym has 3 kinds of climbing. Bouldering is done without ropes on the shorter walls, up to 15 ft. Top rope climbing uses a harness, ropes and belay device. It uses the ropes to connect the climber to a person on the ground, who controls the belay device. The belay keeps the climber from falling! Auto belay can be done solo with an auto belay device, and also has ropes. The belay walls are 40 feet high, so you need ropes in case you fall! Well, it’s not uncommon to fall on the wall, but the belay makes sure you don’t drop to the floor 😉
Thanks for explaining! I was hoping it was something like that! The thing is that when I’ve seen your photos it never seemed like anyone was wearing any safety device (or maybe I didn’t watch close enough) and not on video either so I sort of thought all wall climbing was supposed to be done without it!
Susanne recently posted…Keeping up the good work
The rope is right in front of the climber, against the wall, so it’s probably not apparent. Some people are afraid of the tall walls, but i’m more afraid of falling off the bouldering wall and landing wrong on the pads! You could easily twist a wrist, ankle or knee if you land incorrectly!
I can totally imagine that, and a sprained wrist is bad enough. You’re very brave doing this! My husband thinks I should give it a try but it’ll never happen, especially with my elevated fracture risk. I’ll keep saying that as long as I’m not strong enough to do a pull-up, I’m not strong enough to climb anyway. When I get to the point that I can do pull-ups, I’ll have to make up another excuse, lol!
Susanne Svalefelt recently posted…Keeping up the good work
Trust me, I’m not strong enough to do a pull up! But I can see the concern. It’s valid! But with rope climbing, no worries about injury at all 🙂
What a fun and wonderful week! All that climbing is awesome! I love that you made it to the top of the yellow route!
I had a shamrock shake a few weeks ago… it wasn’t as yummy as past years, but what can you do?
Love all the photos! I love seeing what everyone is up to! And personally, I would just knock out the long run. No point putting it off!
Jenn recently posted…A Look At My Spring Running Plans
I was bummed we couldn’t get the Shamrock Oreo McFlurry at the McDonald’s we stopped at. That sounds really good!
Glad to see I’m not the only one with the Shamrock Shake in their post.
What a busy but fun week for you.
At the train statin, I used TRAIN as my word and so I got it in two with TOXIC.
Biggest lucky break was that the weekend had nice weather as it is cold, windy and may snow everyday this week.
I think you can bet on either my post or your post having ice cream or iced coffee in any given week. Go us!! 🙂 It looked like good race weather for NYC from what I could see on my FB friend’s posts. I look forward to seeing your recap!
So impressed by the climbing!! I had to do my long run in Spain last week, I worried myself by struggling in the heat so I ended up having a 4.30 am breakfast and going out at 7, 30 mins before sunrise. I ended up running some of it at the same time as my friend I usually run with, who was back in the UK! So hooray flexibility for us all!
Way to get that run done! That is funny you were running at the same time as your friends. I bet you had beautiful scenery!
I did, I ran along the coast from near Malaga airport into the city and back again, palm trees and the sunrise to one side, and round a park we really love (well, round and round and round) with parakeets squawking above me!
I’m late to the game on reading and commenting because I was enjoying my own family time during spring break. It looks like you had a fantastic time and packed a lot in!
Debbie recently posted…Weekly RunDown: March 10 – 16 and March 17 – 23 / A Spring Break Rundown Twofer