This will be a two week recap because I missed last week. Alan and I were camping! Oh, and Sam was too. Since Sam and Luna are still not friends we decided to not leave them home together and sent Luna off to college. It would have been far too stressful to keep them together. Needless to say my daughter’s roommates loved having a cat for a few days. Sam actually did better than expected on his first camping journey. There was a lot of meowing in the truck, but also a lot of sleeping. It was an 8 hour drive. He did wonderful in the camper and just played and hung out. It all worked out! It was a really enjoyable trip.
We went to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Funny confession – since my kids are going back to school I thought the park wasn’t going to be that busy! Well duh, Labor Day is a huge camping holiday! The park was busy and whew, it was hot! I did a few runs but didn’t follow my training plan. All of the hiking and biking was plenty of exercise.
We saw bears and elk. One bear was very close to our truck but he was only interested in the plants on the side of the road. I was very surprised to see the larger bears in tree tops. I completely forgot to look there!!
We went on an interesting Nature Trail which reminded us of Washington. The trail was a wooden plank!
Beautiful hike to Alum Cave Bluff. So pretty!
I ran twice on the Cades Cove scenic road. Scenic? Yes. Hot and hilly. Yessssss. So exhausting.
We hiked the Chimney Tops trail which was about a million stairs! It was actually around 800 stairs, but felt like a million. Our legs were shaking when we got done!
Back to the regular training plan… ran 38 miles this week and biked 38 so far. This week was the final big week of training, and I’ll start to taper from here. The Berlin Marathon is only 3 weeks away! It was a big week also because I no longer have any pain at all from my injury. I used to feel it when I started running from a walking state, but no more. Woohoo!!
Mon – Happy Labor day! Nothing but driving in the truck heading home today. Sam was a bit whiny but he was quite happy sleeping on my lap. Just like a baby.
Tues – 7 miles. A nice chilly run today, 46 degrees. My legs were loving it! 9:06 average, a progressive run. Last mile was 8:43. Nice!!
14 miles cycling. Ladies Ride! The day warmed up nicely. I hadn’t planned on doing this ride, but it was much needed after a stressful day at work. It was a beautiful night. I was twinning with my friend.
Weds – 5 miles. I debated running outside today due to the dark morning (I could stay inside and watch TV on the treadmill!), but nope, gotta get outside while I still can.
In the evening we went to our local fair. The burgers and milk shakes are delicious!
Thurs – 21 miles, long run. This is the big one! When I looked at the forecast for the rest of the week it was expected to be rainy on Friday and Saturday. My husband was doing his long run today, so I decided I would just go for it and do mine too. Ooof! The start of my run was 59 degrees but it went up the 70s by the end of the run. I really should have started early. And maybe cheeseburger and a milkshake wasn’t the best long run prep either. And I didn’t like my route. And maybe a 3rd day of running wasn’t the best idea. And… well, it just doesn’t matter because it’s done!!
Oh yeah, it was also salon day (before and after). Ahhhhhh. Wish she should could do my hair everyday! How does she get it to behave with just a hairbrush and dryer?
We are getting ready for our trip to Germany by watching the Sound of Music. We will be visiting Salzburg where the movie was filmed on our Europe trip.
Fri – Cedar Point day. It was raining up to the time we entered the park. What a great day to be at the park – it was dead! The most we had to wait in a line was 5 mins. We got to ride all of the big coasters within 4 hours and left right before the rain started again. So glad we went!
Sat – 5 miles running, 3.5 miles walking. It was a chilly morning! 49 degrees. I busted out the long sleeve shirt and knickers. Yes, this would have been a good day for that long run! DOH. Oh well, it’s done. My run was followed by an hour walk with my friend. Always good to have some chick chat 😉
Sun – some biking with Alan, and visiting my mom and aunts. Enjoying the nice weather!
Fun pic of the week…. kitten in the pantry! oh Sam.
And…my Garmin watch was excited about the drop in temps this week too. My fitness is peaking?? I guess that’s a good sign right?
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 seen the Sound of Music? Like it?
Q: Did you watch Ohio State crush Western Michigan??
It was a smackdown 🙂
Okay, let’s talk about Sound of Music first. I LOVE that movie!!!!! When we were little, we used to watch it every year when it was on TV, and we had the record so we listened to it all the time. As an adult, I did visit Salzburg and saw some of the places where the movie was filmed. Now I want to see it again- it’s been a while.
Sounds like everything is going really well for you. Your injury is healed and your race is coming up! I can’t wait to hear all about it, and your trip. Oh, and the camping sounds great. That is a beautiful area.
Hopefully I will recognize the Sound of Music locations. I think we did a musical performance at school which was SOM songs because I know all of the words! It was new for my husband but he said it was a good movie (winning!).
Your camping pics look fabulous! So glad to read that you are back feeling good and crushing those runs!!
It was a great camping trip. We had to park almost a mile away from one of the trailheads since it was so busy. We got our step goal every day and fell asleep very tired 😊
Wow, 22 miles! I’m so glad to hear the injury (and its subsequent pain) are history. What a relief! I’m a little envious of your upcoming marathon, but NOT envious of all the training miles, LOL. I hope all goes well for Taper!
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I’m usually pretty beat up by this time of the training cycle, but not this time. I feel like I’m just hitting my stride. Hopefully that doesn’t mean I’m undertrained!
The Sound of Music has always been one of my favorite movies! I’d love to go to Austria to visit the Alps. I’ll just live vicariously through you and one of my friends who was just there.
Nice work on the training. I’m so glad you’ve been feeling so well!
Nothing better than singing along to Sound of Music! It will be fun to see all of the movie spots.
I’ve seen the Sound of Music many times! That will be a great trip… looking forward to your pics.
So happy to hear that you have finally recovered fully from your injury and are training so well.
I hope my lay off is a short one so I can run the marathon.
I hope your time off is short too!
Well done on your 21 and your pain-free state, yay! I saw my friends who are doing Berlin this week, looking strong and excited, too.
There has been a lot of chatter on the Berlin Marathon Facebook group. It’s fun to see everyone hitting that last long run. Also fun because I have no clue if people are running fast or slow since the paces are in KM/hr. haha!!
Your camping trip sounds like a lot of fun, and how great that Sam did so well. One of my high school friends is really into photography and lives near Cades Cove so I see lots of pictures from there posted to her FB.
I’m so happy your training has been going so well. Yay for taper time!
Sam did such a good job. Hopefully he enjoyed it and would want to do it again. Not sure Luna would ever do well in the camper. We probably should have given it a try when she was young!
First of all, Sam and Luna are the most precious little things! I love them.
I watched UMiami crush FAMU, and then I saw the Dolphins beat the Jags. But only in passing LOL.
Berlin is going to be exceptional! I can’t wait to hear about it!
UMiami played very well in their last two games I see. Nice!! I’ve never been a big fan, but I’m really starting like watching football.
Oh wow, what a great camping trip (I can’t believe you took your cat camping – never heard of that before, haha, but that’s so cool).
And it sounds like your long run went amazing. Way to go. I hope you feel strong for the race coming up. Say hi to Germany from me (my home country! I wanna run there sometime!).