Every few years I talk Beer Geek into venturing north to the cold and snow. So, we hopped on a plane last Sunday and headed to the land of beer, cheese, and most of my family. Meanwhile, back in DC, they were hitting record highs. Oh well. Our first day we headed to this funky little train "museum". The owner is a real train engineer and he's set up this extensive layout of trains with moving displays powered by motors from things like microwaves and toasters. His attention to detail was pretty amazing! After our train adventure, we headed for New Glarus Brewery. We hadn't visited the new location yet and it was quite impressive. After we wandered around, we tasted a few beers and bought some to take home with us. (New Glarus … [Read more...]
White House Holiday Tour + rest of my weekend
This is one of those weeks where I totally need a weekend to recover from my weekend. And I have a crazy busy week ahead of me, so going into it exhausted pretty much guarantees it's going to be a rough week. Did I mention that last week I was chosen to be an Altra Ambassador again? You know I love the shoes, so I'm excited to be working with them again this year. (Yes, those are all my shoes... but not all OF my Altra shoes. #obsession) We started our weekend with a holiday party with Beer Geek's office. It was walking distance from our house, so I elected to wear cute boots for the walk. Yes, I'm stupid and I don't learn from my mistakes. Also, I'm pretty sure that LLBean didn't worry about how much beer could fit in their kids' … [Read more...]
State of the run
Despite a few high points (Center of the Nation series, Runner's World Half and Festival weekend, and surviving the Marine Corps Marathon), I've had a rough fall when it comes to running. It took me almost two full months to recover from bronchitis and be able to breathe completely normally on a run again. Meanwhile, I was struggling with some issues in with my right hip. The hardest part of that was the pain was in a slightly different place each time I ran, so I had a hard time pinpointing the issue. So, I shut down my running for about 3 weeks. I joined a gym and worked with a trainer and set my running aside. But I'll confess: running is my first love. I'll do other workouts to support my running, but I only do it because I need to. … [Read more...]
To streak or not to #RWrunstreak + #RWgo
Remember when I used to run a lot? Remember when 5 or 6 days a week was the norm for me? Yeah, those days ended in September and I'm having a really hard time getting back on the horse. I'm completely over the bronchitis (thank goodness) and my hip is mostly back to normal. But I'm struggling with getting back in the habit of running. And I actually think that not running is making running harder. Every time I run, I feel like my body has to figure out running all over again. I feel like I'm always running on tired legs and can never get in a rhythm. I feel like I'm always in need of a rest day and I haven't run more than 3 days in a week in way too long. I think my problem is that my legs are missing their recovery runs. My … [Read more...]
How to safely become a streaker
You know I'm referring to run streaking, right? I mean *I'd* never do something as crazy as go streaking. Nope, not me. But I am run streaking. I'm on day 17 and so far, so good. It's helping me rebuild my workout habit. 4-5 days a week are part of my training plan for my upcoming races, but the others I just use running as a warm up to get me motivated to do another work out. Will I keep this up for a year? For a lifetime? I don't know. My goal right now is the end of January, but I'll re-evaluate as necessary. Want to do one too? Here are some tips for safely starting a streak: … [Read more...]
Weekend in a nutshell: good, bad, ugly
There was a lot of good in the weekend and thankfully only a little bit bad and ugly. I'm joining Tara over at Running 'n' Reading for my weekend update. So, let me tell you about the good. The biggest good: I've been chosen to be a 2015 Ambassador for Altra Running. I'm pretty excited because I've been sharing the Altra love for a while now. Another good: I ran 10 miles on Friday after running 7 miles on Thursday. Back to back higher mileage for the win. Perhaps it's time to actually decide on my training plan... Saturday was all good. We took the boys to the National Geographic Museum to see the Spinosaurus. It was pretty cool and Jones, my budding paleontologist, was happy we got there. Afterwards, we rode the … [Read more...]
The #RWRunStreak Continues
...barely. I have one of the stuffiest colds I have had in a LONG time. Overall, it's probably the worst cold I've had in a couple of years, but the coughing is not quite as bad as the last really bad cold I had (seriously, the last truly bad cold had such a wicked cough that I could hardly eat because every time I had a coughing fit, I threw up. Yeah, that was fun.) Anyway, I've been trying to write all of my year end posts that I like to write, but every time I sit down at the computer, I think "a nap sounds better" and off to the couch I go. Despite not wanting to run at all, I did manage 1.6 miles on the treadmill last night (Beer Geek and a friend guilted me into it), so the streak lives. And as soon as I can take a deep … [Read more...]
Recovery
I've been doing the Runners World Run Streak this year. (If you follow me on facebook or twiter, you've heard about my adventures in getting it done.) I've never done it before. In fact, in previous streak attempts, I've never made it past 13 days. Today I'm at Day 20 and there's only one reason I've made it this far (and I fully intend to finish.) Recovery runs. I can run 5 times a week with no problem. But add in 2 more days and my body starts to complain. It really loves its rest days. REALLY loves them. So, I've taken two days a week and made them "rest runs". I literally run 1-1.5 miles and I do it at a pace 1-2 minutes slower than my normal pace. That, combined with walking to make sure I get in at least 20 minutes … [Read more...]
I am not a streaker
And I'm ok with that. I'm doing Mel's "Mile a day for December" challenge and I really thought I'd make sure I ran every day. She did give us an out a few days ago and say that walking counted too. Since December 1, I've run the following: 3 3.5 2.2 7 4 3.3 1 8 2.2 3.5 That totals 37.7 miles and is more than the total number of miles I ran in the month of November. Whoa! If I want to keep running and not hurt myself, I needed to step back for a day. Oh well, a 10 day streak is not so bad. ;o) On a totally unrelated topic, I began moving our CDs from their cases into a CD wallet last night (yes, I realize I could upload them and get rid of the CDs, but baby steps, people!) I filled an album that holds … [Read more...]
