Weekly workouts – rocking into August

As of today, Sunday Aug 4th, there are 8 more weeks until the Berlin Marathon.  Wow, that’s not much!  Training is moving along as well as it can.  I am not completely recovered, but I am able to get through the miles on my training plan as written so far.  No speedwork is being done, and my pace is 2 mins slower than I used to be, but “completion” is the goal.  This week was another busy, busy fun week. Apologies for not getting to everyone’s blogs last week!  I’m on top of my game this week 🙂  My 100 mile cycling week streak ended this week, but that’s OK, I was too busy! Running = 28 miles, cycling = 42 miles.

Mon – 6 miles running.  My Monday started out pretty good.  6 miles and a sunrise.  Way to start the week strong!  Well, kinda.

And then “the curse of Monday” started.  First, the ice cube dispenser wasn’t working in the fridge.  I forgot to close the lid on my drink since I was messing around with the ice, and sure enough I spilled my coffee all over as I was walking out the door [late to work already].  Sigh.  And then the internet service was out on my phone at work so I literally just had phone and text all day… which seems like the stone age when you want to look up stuff and stay connected.  Ugh.

But no worries… tonight was a concert!!  We headed out for Cleveland (a 2 hour drive) early enough to get good lawn seats and see the opening act.  But wait.. It’s Monday.  A truck exploded on the expressway and we sat for 90 mins.  Nope, no opening act for us.

Finally we arrived and did end up with good lawn seats.  Sammy Hagar and his band rocked!!  It was a great night for a concert.

Well, until the speakers blew out.  Then we couldn’t hear.  Ugh.  They used temporary speakers and we all enjoyed the show.

We were happy to get out of the concert venue early enough to avoid traffic, but wouldn’t you know it, the EV chargers were down when we got there.  Another delay, at 11pm.  Eventually they came back up, we got on the road, and by 1:30am my head hit the pillow.  Truly a fun night no matter what happened!!

Tues – Rest day 😉  A nap was taken during my lunch hour.   Evening fun for tonight was bunco.  We had a full house and a good time was had by all!

Weds – 4 miles running.  Another sweaty morning!  At night we went to a fast group ride.  This is the group I used to ride with, but haven’t joined them yet this year.  It’s pretty much all guys and for me this is a challenging ride.  Rolling speed was going to be 19 mph.  I did well with the group until around mile 18 or so when we had the wind at our back.  A couple of the guys were pulling and we hit over 24 mph!  My husband helped me out by getting in front of me so I could draft off of him and I stayed with the group.  By the time we got to the last two miles, they picked up the pace again and I got dropped.  Oh well!  Not a big deal. It was funny though because my husband stayed with the group thinking I was still there.  LOL!!  Overall speed was 19.7 for 25 miles so I was very happy with that accomplishment.  

Thurs – 13.1 miles running, long run!  I’m sure this was supposed to be a half marathon on my training plan, but I don’t need to “see what I can do”, so this was just a long run.  And given the high humidity, it was just a test of fortitude!  I was drenched with sweat and kept on moving.  That dip in the pool afterwards was amazing.

Fri – .5 miles running, 16 miles biking.  I was hoping to get my 4 mile run done this morning because it fit better into my schedule, but my body said “oh hell no!”.  I stopped after a half mile and rode my bike instead.  Sporting a new jersey today!  Hopefully it’s very visible to cars.

Sat – 4 miles running.  Since both of our kids are gone this weekend we decided to go camping.  The town was hilly and not very running friendly.  Parts of my run were on a busy street and several vehicles barely got over.  Not cool.  I wandered into a cemetery to avoid traffic.

We tried out a new campground, which was only OK.  The sites were super close together.  It rained most of Friday night and Saturday afternoon.  Not a big deal though because we just hung out in the camper and watched movies.  We also went into the small town and went to an urban winery.  Wine tasting with Cheez-Its for the win!

Sun – Kayaking.  With the rain gone and the sun out, it was time for kayaking.  The lake was small but peaceful.  We saw many turtles sunning themselves.  Even on a rainy weekend with a small campsite, my camping trip was very enjoyable.

One huge accomplishment this week?  I have finally finalized all reservations for the Germany portion of our trip.  Hooray!!  That had been filling up my mind for many weeks now and I feel like the stress has been lifted.  I truly enjoy travel planning, but when something doesn’t seem to  make sense, it stresses me out big time.  Now, time to start stressing about our Paris travel planning haha!! 

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 been to a concert this year? Bonus points if it’s a band from the 80’s 😉