Category Archives: Running

Rain, Running, and Steaks.

It’s been raining on and off for almost two days now and it’s been fantastic!! And when it hasn’t been raining it’s been cloudy, which has been nice. It’s been a crazy dry, sunny, and hot summer here in Kansas and we’ve needed a break from it!

The only problem with the rain and cloud cover we’ve been having is that it is super humid and sticky out. Still a huge improvement from the weather we’ve been having though. Plus it’s cooled off quite a bit. The highs have been in the mid to high 80’s and that’s supposed to go down even more next week. Yay!!

Haha and the only reason I’m bringing all of this up is because it makes running so much more enjoyable!! On Monday I did my run when it was sunny and probably around 74 degrees out and it felt terrible haha. But yesterday it was cloudy and drizzling when I ran and that made it sooo much better and totally killed my interval workout! Now that I’ve gotten a few of those under my belt they are starting to get more fun. Still hard though, but honestly that’s what makes interval workouts fun. They can be really hard if you want them to be. And yesterday I did. My goal during yesterday’s interval workout was to hurt. Mission accomplished. Haha oh man, I feel like all runners have a little bit of a sadistic streak in them. 😉

4 miles. Interval work. Drizzly weather. Sweaty bangs. Tuesday was a good running day. 🙂

Yeah, wanting to hurt and successfully hurting was all fun and games yesterday, but today, well, not so much. Today my legs were sore, tired, and running was not so fun. But I mean, I’d rather have my speed workouts feel good and be fun and then have my easy days feel harder. It’s a lot easier to actually do an easy run when your legs are tired haha! At least I think so. 😉 And I did do an easy run today. Although it felt more like a 3 mile slog through cold molasses, while breathing in air that felt like it was more water than oxygen. But it’s done now and my legs will probably feel better tomorrow because of it. 🙂

At least I hope they feel better tomorrow. I’ve got another 5 miles to do and then I get a cross-train day on Friday, so at least I’ll get a day off from running before my long run on Saturday. 🙂 But aside from my legs feeling tired from my interval session yesterday (which I mean, they should. 😉 ), I’m feeling pretty good! Tired. But good. So far half marathon training feels like it’s flying by. Sure, I’m only into week 4, but it still feels like it’s going fast. That being said though, I think I’m going to dial things back just a little bit next week. I’m not feeling terrible or anything, but since I keep describing myself as “tired” I feel like my body probably needs a little bit of a chance to adjust to my training and the increase in mileage I’ve been doing. Hopefully that’s all I need and I’ll be able to ramp things back up the week after that. But like I said, I’m still feeling pretty good! No illnesses or injury, and that’s exactly what I’m trying to prevent. Or at least minimize. More likely than not I’ll end up with a cold at some point during cold and flue season, but that’s nothing I wont be able to handle.

But anyway, all of this training has had me craving red meat. That’s a pretty unusual development for me. I’m not a vegetarian or vegan or anything, but I’m really not a big meat eater either. That’s why I’m not a huge fan of grilling season. Everyone is always grilling up a bunch of meat and I get really tired of it really fast. But oh man, yesterday I just needed some kind of meat. Preferably from a cow. So for dinner I cooked up some steaks we had in our freezer, that we got from a local butcher shop like, a month ago.

Yeah, this was exactly what I needed! I actually ate a whole on for dinner last night (again, pretty crazy for me) and then half of one for lunch today and I’m probably gonna eat the other half for dinner. 🙂 I’ve yet to perfect the art of cooking steak, but these did turn out very well! I let them cook on a skillet for about 4 minutes, flipped them for a second, and then finished them in the oven for about 7 minutes. They were seared really well, but still nice and juicy and a little bit pink in the middle. I think I left them in the oven for a minute or two longer than I should have. I would have preferred a little more pink, but still, they were delicious!

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We’re gonna have to go back to that butcher shop soon. They are a little more expensive that just getting meat at a grocery store, but it’s worth it! Their meat is so much better. Plus the people who work there are pretty awesome. They have big bulk deals every month but they’ve let us sub out certain cuts of meat for others a few times now and I thought that was pretty cool. In my experience, small, local places are usually better than big, chain stores. Plus I just like the way a good butcher shop smells. Haha it reminds me of deer season and loading up my dad’s cows into his trailer and fresh venison and beef. Those were some good times. 🙂

Anyway, is anyone else super stoked that August is about half way over and fall will be here soon (there are 38 days until the autumn equinox, but who’s counting? 😉 )?!? I’m so ready for fall to get here! Hahaha I’ve pretty much been over summer since it started, but at least the weather has been improving a little bit.

Anyway, that’s all for now!

Your hot and sweaty runner friend, who is dreaming of chilly, rainy, fall runs,

~Ashley

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Weekly Recap: August 6th-12th, 2018

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This week has been a little more tough. Mostly because I’ve been pretty tired and it’s been really hot and gross out. But even so, I haven’t skipped or cut a single run short this week and I’m pretty darn proud of that! 🙂

At this point I’m only 3 going on 4 weeks in, but this training cycle has been a lot different than the training I did for my first 3 half marathons. I haven’t skipped or cut anything short this time around, but I did a lot during my first 3 training cycles. In all fairness though, I was also hurt while training for those (and a few of those injuries weren’t even running related haha). I’m also doing more mileage earlier on and I’ve already done my first double digit run this week, which I wouldn’t have even been close to doing the other 3 times I’ve done this.

I don’t know what it is, but this time around something just clicked and I’m getting shit done! Originally I was just going to try to survive both of my half marathons (since I’m doing two in two days and all. 😉 ), but now I’m thinking about chasing a PR during the Longview Half, which will be the first of the two. I’ve just been putting in a lot of work so far and if I keep things up at this rate I really should be able to! Which would be amazing since last year at Longview didn’t go very well for me. Plus I haven’t PR’d in anything in forever and that’s just kinda sucked. I’m still not entirely sure if it’s a good idea to chase a PR for that half when I have another the day after, but my goal for the Gobbler Grind was always just to survive it and cross the finish line anyway. Plus my dad and my brother are doing that one with me, so I feel like it will be easier to do just that since I wont be doing the second one by myself.

I don’t know man, the thought of chasing a PR in general is kinda scary and exciting. But especially now that I’ll still have another half to do after finishing the first one. I think I’m gonna go for it though! Because isn’t the whole point of running to do fun, crazy, scary, exciting things? It sure is for me!!

Anyway, those are just some thoughts I’ve been having. I know I’m still super early into this training cycle, but I have been needed to figure out my goals for these two races and I think I just have. 🙂

So lets talk about this week’s training!

Monday:

rest day

Last Saturday and Sunday I did a long run and then a medium long run. It was the first time I’d ever done something like that and it went really well! But I still had to recover from it, hence the rest day on Monday. 🙂 That night we had a few storms roll through and the brought some much needed rain with them! Haha one of my all time favorite hobbies is watching thunderstorms roll in and taking photos/videos. I got a pretty cool little video of some lightning that night. 🙂

Tuesday:

4 miles, intervals
30 minutes of strength work

It was still raining on Tuesday morning, which made me a happy camper! I was feeling kinda tired though, so it did take me a while to get out the door. I’m so glad I did though! This run reminded me why I love interval work so much!! Plus it was a little bit cooler because of the rain and that helped a lot. Haha honestly this is probably one of the best runs I’ve had all summer! I worked hard and felt really great doing it. Followed it up with some strength work later in the day. 🙂

Wednesday:

2 treadmill miles

Originally the plan was to do 5 miles on Wednesday and then 2 on Thursday, but I was feeling kinda worn out from my interval session on Tuesday and it was hot and gross out, so I decided to switch those two runs around. Did this one on the treadmill because of an air quality warning. It wasn’t exactly fun, but I got it done! 🙂

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Thursday:

5 miles

Thursday was another hot one! I tried to tough this one out on the road, but we had another air quality warning and it was pretty bad that day. So I ended up doing 3.18 miles on the road and then came inside and finished the last 1.82 miles on the treadmill. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do! But I got my 5 miles in and I was very happy about that.

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Friday:

3 miles, hills

Stuck to the treadmill again on Friday. The weather was still pretty bad and I didn’t feel like running in it. Plus doing my hill workout was a lot easier on the treadmill haha. I was able to run uphill for the prescribed amount of time which was nice. None of the hills in my neighborhood are big enough to run up for more than 3-4 minutes, which can be a bit of a challenge when doing a hill workout. But now that I have a fancy treadmill I was able to do the whole thing, exactly as my training plan called for. Pretty neat!

Saturday:

10 miles
40 minutes of yoga

I understand why my training plan calls for hard workouts and speed sessions the day before my long runs every once in a while, but that doesn’t mean I like it. 10 miles on very tired legs on Saturday. But I mean, that is kinda the point…and probably really helpful for the two half marathons in two days thing. Still though, this one was hard. Well actually for the most part it wasn’t too bad. But it was really starting to heat up during the last 3 miles and that’s when it started getting really hard. I had made it back to my house at 9.57 miles and said fuck it, I’m finishing this run on my treadmill. And you bet your ass I did hop on the treadmill for .43 miles. Oh man that was probably one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever done, but it was nice to finish that last little bit in my air-conditioned house haha.

Finally did some stretching on Saturday as well. You might have notice that I haven’t really done much of that or strength work or any cross training this week. Yeah, remember how I said I’ve been really tired? The fact that I’ve gotten all of my runs done this week is impressive! But I do know that all of that other stuff is important and I am going to focus on doing more next week. This week I was just happy to get all of my runs in. 😉

Sunday:

rest day

Yay!! Haha I’ve legit been looking forward to my rest day all week. 😉 I spent the day binge watching Game Of Thrones. Last night Luke and I went to a house warming party that our friends threw and they let me borrow season 6 and 7 so I can catch up. But anyway, it was nice to sit around, do nothing, and watch TV all day. 🙂

Now this is more of the mileage that I had wanted to be running all summer! Unfortunately that didn’t happen, but at least I’m here now. 🙂

Anyway, this week was a little bit of a challenge, but I got it done! Can’t wait to see what I accomplish next week!!

Happy Sunday!

~Ashley

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Thursday Things

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Remember how almost a year ago I got to see my all time favorite band for the second time and it was literally the best thing ever and I was the happiest camper that ever was?!?!? Yeah, me too.

#throwbackthursday

Yeah that was super-duper irrelevant, but I shared that on Instagram this morning so I thought why not share it here as well. 😉

Anyway, this week has been a little hard so far, half marathon training-wise. I had a rest day on Monday, followed by an interval session on Tuesday. That went REALLY well and I had a blast doing it. Probably because it was raining and a little bit cooler that day. And I also really like interval work haha. But after that everything had been a bit of a struggle. I’ve just been really tired this week (menstruating does that to me sometimes) and have been struggling to get up and moving in the mornings. Plus after the rain on Tuesday it got really hot, humid, and gross out again. And we’ve been getting more air quality alerts which really sucks. I was hoping we were done with heat and air quality warnings, but obviously we are not. I’m really hoping that August ends up being our last really hot month, but September can still be pretty warm too. I guess we’ll have to wait and see though.

Now that being said, I’ve still been sticking to my training plan and getting shit done!! Just a little more slowly this week. 😉 The plan for today was an easy 5 miler. I started out on the road but I didn’t wake up early enough this morning, so at about 3 miles in it was 80 degrees with 90% humidity, sunny, and the air quality was really bad. So I gave up finishing my run outside and completed it on the treadmill instead. Really glad I have that option now, otherwise this run would have been cut short! 🙂 I’ve got a hill workout on the scheduled for tomorrow and I still haven’t decided if I want to try to do it outside or just do the whole thing on the treadmill. It’s supposed to be pretty gross out tomorrow as well…

Anyway, after my run this morning I was pretty busy! I spent the rest of the morning cleaning EVERYTHING haha. I did a bunch of laundry, watered and tended to the garden, cleaned both of my rabbits’ cages which is a time-consuming process for various reasons, completely cleaned and took every inch of the room they live in, and then kinda spot cleaned the rest of the floor through out the house. Oh and periodically checking on the chickens and giving them ice, since they seem to hate this weather just as much as I do. After all of that was taken care of I showered, ate lunch, and sat down to read for about an hour because I felt like I needed a bit of a break after all of that haha. But at around 2 pm I was back at it again, this time doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen, and then putting away laundry. Usually I don’t enjoy doing chores around the house, but today I really was for some reason so I was trying to take advantage of that. 😉

Oh and I’ve been doing a pretty good job of keeping up with my little push up challenge! Las night I thought I had forgotten to do them during the day, but when I checked the scheduled yesterday was actually a rest day so that worked out haha. I did my 7 push ups for today later in the afternoon after my cleaning frenzy. I did all 7 on my toes which I was pretty darn proud of! I’m still not able to go down all the way, but before 5 was the most I could do on my toes and I felt like I was dying doing them. Now it’s still hard, but I feel pretty good doing them! Haha and maybe by the time this challenge is over my push ups wont look so half assed. 😉

Well, that pretty much sums up what I’ve done today though. Like I said, tomorrow I’ve got a hill workout to do, and probably a little bit of strength work too. And of course Saturday is my long run day. Then Saturday evening Luke and I are going to a housewarming party. I’m not sure who is all going to be there but the only people I’ll know are the couple who are throwing the party and Luke. Not exactly an introverts idea of a good time haha. Not gonna lie, I’m already looking forward to my rest day on Sunday. I’m already worn out just thinking about all of that! 😉 But I’ve been pushing through and getting it done! I’m so so so very ready for fall to get here, but I can’t deny that all of these hard summer miles aren’t helpful. They make running in the colder months seem so much easier and feel that much more enjoyable. Summer miles bring fall smiles!

All righty then! That is all from me for now!

How’s your summer running been going? Are you currently training for anything? Do you like running in the warmer months or the colder months better and why? Apparently I’m just full of questions today! But I would really like to know your answers! 🙂

Happy Friday eve!! I hope your week has been good so far!

~Ashley

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Weekly Recap: July 30th – August 5th, 2018

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Another great week of training is in the bag!

I did my last run of the week today and that officially wraps up week two of training for Operation Two Half Marathons In Two Days. Obviously I’m not very far into my training, but at this point I’m feeling great physically and mentally! So lets get right into this week’s recap! 🙂

Monday:

3 easy miles

Kicked off the week with a nice and easy 3 miler. We had some pretty nice weather earlier this week and it was in the high 60’s when I did this run on Monday morning. It was pretty darn nice!

Tuesday:

3 miles, intervals
20 minutes of Pilates

Intervals! Yay!! Haha so it’s actually been a hot minute since I’ve done a real, actual interval workout so this one was pretty tough! My paces were a little slower than I would have liked, but like I said, it’s been a while. Plus by Tuesday it was starting to get a little more hot out again, so I’m not too worried about it. I’m still happy with what I got done! Followed my run with 20 minutes of Pilates because I’m working on that strength! All in all pretty happy with the work I put in on Tuesday.

Wednesday

30 minutes of strength training

Day off from running but still put in some work! During my little strength session I kinda came to grips with the fact that I avoid push ups at all costs. They’re hard and I hate them haha. But since I’m trying to build strength through my entire body I figured maybe I should work on some of my weaknesses and this seemed like a good place to start, especially since it was the first day of August. So I decided to do a push up challenge thing for the month of August. Just to force myself to do them and hopefully at least get a little bit better at them. So we shall see how that goes.

Thursday:

3 easy miles

Just another easy 3 miler followed by day two of my push up challenge! Haha like I said, I’m really bad at push ups. I can’t really go down all that far, but I still accomplished 4 push ups on my toes instead of on my knees, so I’ll take it!

Friday:

rest day

Luke and I had a pretty busy day on Friday! We had errands to run, groceries to buy, and then we made a jar of tomato sauce, 2 jars of strawberry jam, and a jar of blueberry jam. That was a lot of fun. You can read more about that here, if you’re interested! 🙂

Saturday:

8 miles
30 minutes of yoga

Longer run #1 done for the weekend!!! Since I’m going to be running back to back half’s I figure that means I need to do at least a few back to back long-ish runs. So that was my plan for this weekend. 🙂

Saturday’s long run was relatively uneventful. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t terrible. I was treated to a really pretty sunrise though, so that was nice. 🙂 Afterwards I spent a good majority of the day resting, re-hydrating, and mentally preparing to go again on Sunday. I don’t think I’ve ever run the day after a long run before, so this is a brand new experience for me.

Sunday:

5 miles

Well, mission accomplished!! I followed yesterday’s long run with a medium long run today and I didn’t die! 😉 Haha my legs were kinda tired, but other than that I felt pretty great! During the first mile-ish I was viciously assaulted with lots of love by a black lab who snuck out of the door while his owner was walking outside. I didn’t see it but all of a sudden I heard the unmistakable sound of a dog running at full speed right at me, so I turned to look, saw him coming, and had time to say “oh shit,” before he was right on me. Luckily he was just friendly and wanted love. But had he not been that could have ended badly for me. I had very little time to react before he got to me. Haha he was a very speedy boy. But his owner ran after him and apologized and since nothing bad happened I told him it was all good and that I love dogs. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like to stop during my runs to pet dogs, haha this one just kinda scared me at first!

Anyway, after my run I watered the garden, fed the chickens and cleaned up around their coop, and then did a few more chores around the house. After that I was pretty tired and spent most of the day focusing on re-hydrating and resting. Luckily tomorrow is a rest day. I’m really looking forward to that haha.

Total Weekly Mileage: 22

Starting to move onward and upward! So far my half marathon training is going really well and I hope that continues! I’m currently feeling very positive about training and my upcoming half’s!! 🙂 Oh and I’ve also been doing a pretty good job of keeping up with this push up challenge so far! I can’t actually go down very far yet, but I’ve been doing them all on my toes and that’s a total win for me! Pretty stoked about that haha.

Anyway, I hope you’ve had a great weekend!!

Until next time,

~Ashley

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Canning Season, A Long Run, and August’s StrideBox

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It’s officially one of my favorite times of year! It’s canning season!! Yay!

Unfortunately we’ve had a pretty bad growing season. It’s been hot, the sun has been intense, and we haven’t had nearly enough rain, and my garden is suffering. My zucchini plants died, one of my berry bushes died, my cucumber plants aren’t doing so well, my watermelon plants haven’t even grown new flowers for at least two weeks, and my tomato plants are looking really sad. But they have started producing enough tomatoes for us to start doing some stuff with them, so yesterday Luke and I made a jar of tomato sauce. 🙂

It is kind of a long process for one little jar of sauce, but we thing it’s totally worth it! First you have to blanch the tomatoes, then peel the skin off and then cut off the stems, quarter them, and then let them boil in a sauce pan until they’re completely broken down and add in salt and lemon juice. While all of that’s happening you have to sterilize your jar (boiling it for about a minute works pretty well 🙂 ) and once your sauce and jar are ready you pour the sauce into your now sterile jar, put the lid on nice and tight, and then boil it for another 45 minutes or so. Then you let the jar sit on your counter until the lid seals (hearing it pop shut is a very rewarding experience haha) and then store it for future chilly or pasta sauce, or whatever. Aside from the salt and lemon juice we don’t season it at all. That just makes it more versatile when you go to use it! Obviously this is just a super simplified version of what happens. Maybe once I feel like we’ve perfected the art of canning I’ll share our step by step instructions. 😉

After our single jar of tomato sauce was done we moved on to making a few jars of berry jam, just for fun. We had to use store bought berries though. At this point none of our berry plants are producing enough fruit for us to do anything other than eat right away haha. But I have pretty high hopes for my strawberry plant! It did fantastic this year and it should do even better next year! Anyway, making the jam was pretty similar to making the tomato sauce. We just had to smash the berries before boiling them to break them down even more and then adding lots of sugar haha. So I mean, it’s not very healthy in that regard, but at least we know exactly what went into it (berries, sugar, lemon juice) and it doesn’t have any corn syrup, artificial sweetener, or weird food dyes in it. So I think that’s a plus! And it’s just a lot of fun to make! 🙂

So now we have one jar of tomato sauce, two jars of strawberry jam, and one jar of blueberry jam. Not Bad! And I’m sure come fall we will have added more to our little store of homemade canned goods. 🙂 Growing, processing, and cooking your own food is such a fun and rewarding experience! I think everyone should do at least a little bit of it! I personally thing those are all very useful skills to have. 🙂

Our tomato sauce and two jars of strawberry jam. Haha the blueberry wasn’t quite done when I took this photo. 😉

So Luke and I were pretty busy yesterday! In the morning we had to go grocery shopping and then took care of a few other things while we were out. Then we had to fix the tarp on the chicken coop (the wind keeps blowing it around and messing it all up) and then just kinda played with the chickens for a while. We did all of our canning and then cleaned up the kitchen (both of which took a while haha) and we still managed to get to be around 10 pm last night! Good thing too, because I needed to wake up at 5:00 this morning so I could do this week’s long run before it got too hot outside.

We actually got a nice little break from the intense heat and at this point it’s looking like we wont be going back to having all sorts of heat and air quality warnings like we were having in June and July, but the hotter weather is back and that means I have to wake up super early to get out before the sun. Yuck. Waking up at 5 am is not my favorite thing to do, and I totally got spoiled from our little break from the heat so I’m not used to doing it anymore haha. I did it this morning though and was treated to a very nice sunrise.

All of those pretty colors didn’t actually last very long. The sky was pink for maybe 5 minutes, then it turned more yellow/orange for a few minutes, and then it turned to more normal daytime colors. I guess that’s what makes sunrises so special though. They don’t last very long and in the summer you have to get up pretty early to see them.

Anyway, had yet another uneventful long run. I wasn’t feeling too great today, but I also didn’t feel too terrible either haha. Tomorrow might be a lot more interesting though. Since I’m training for two half marathons in two days I plan on doing some back to back long-ish runs. So the plan for this weekend was to do 8 miles today, which I did. 🙂 And then do 5 miles tomorrow. I don’t think I’ve ever run the day after a long run before and if I ever have it was probably a super short one. Maybe like 1 or 2 miles. So tomorrow will be a brand new experience for me! I feel like my legs are going to be super tired, but that’s pretty much the whole point of doing it haha! We shall see though. Hopefully it wont be too bad.

I’m only two weeks into my training plan but I’m currently just trying to take it one day, one run, and one mile at a time, and not think too much about what I have coming in the future or what I did in the past. I’m hoping getting into and then staying in that mindset will help me get through the rest of this training cycle (because it’s gonna be a big one for me!) and then my two half marathons. I don’t think overthinking is going to help me so I’m just gonna try to do the exact opposite. 😉

Anyway, not long after I finished my run the mail came and my August StrideBox did too!! That was a pleasant surprise, because last time I had checked the tracker for it, it said it wasn’t going to get here until Monday. 🙂 This months box came with all sorts of fun snack like things, which is pretty much my favorite thing to get in my StrideBoxes. It also came with another cooling towel which is awesome because I lost mine haha. I’m not sure where or how my old one got away from me, but at least now I have a new one! 😉 I’m also pretty excitied the protein gummy’s that came in it. I didn’t even know protein gummy’s were a thing, but I love me some gummy candy and have a slight issue with consuming enough protein on a daily basis, so I enjoy finding tasty things that help with that.

Also, I just need to take a second to express how awkward it is for me to see the word “daily” spelled out properly. Ever since I got married my last name has been Dailey (pronounced the same way as “daily”) so the normal word just looks weird to me now every time I see it. Haha I know that’s kinda weird, but these are the things I experience in my life. 😉

Okey Dokey then! That is all for today! I’ll let you know how my 5 miler tomorrow goes in my weekly recap that will be up tomorrow evening. 🙂

Happy Saturday!

~Ashley

July Miles And Goal Check In

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Well hello there, August! I’m very glad that you’re the last full month of summer, and I sure hope the hot weather leaves when you do! 😉 Actually the weather hasn’t been too bad here lately! That’s supposed to change next week though. Apparently the really hot weather is coming back. Boo…

Anyway, didn’t do too bad mileage wise, considering that this month I had two weeks where I did little to no running. One week because of the heat wave and another because of our family vacation. Other than that though, I had a pretty good month! Ended up with 42.48 miles for the month and kicked off my training for Operation Two Half Marathons In Two Days.

Haha and now that that’s in full swing I definitely don’t see my weekly or monthly mileage going down much. Well, as long as I can stay healthy and injury free. *Knock on wood.* I’m not typically good at that. 😂

Anyway, I did pretty good with my other goals as well. Still did pretty decent with my step goal even with the heat wave and being on vacation. Haha but being right on that river really helped with the whole walking thing while we were on vacation. 😉 I also managed to keep up pretty well with my training journal, which was an improvement over last month. 😄

Welp, I guess that about covers it! Kinda short, sweet, and to the point this month. 😂 I hope you have a great August!!

~Ashley

Weekly Recap: July 23rd-29th, 2018

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The first week of training for Operation Two Half Marathons in Two Days is done!! I think it went really well and all-in-all it was a great way to kick off this training cycle! Now hopefully the next 15 weeks will go just as well. 😉 We’ll just have to wait and see about that, but at this point I’m super stoked and motivated to be training and working towards a new goal! 🙂

Monday:

3 easy miles
30 minutes of strength work

Started off the week with 3 easy miles, followed by 30 minutes of strength work! Right now I really want to focus on getting stronger! I think that’s going to be really important to help get me across both finish lines on November 10th and 11th and will hopefully help reduce my likely hood of getting injured. I feel like I’m going to need all of the help I can get in that department haha. But anyway, for the most part Monday’s run was good, but uneventful. 🙂

Tuesday:

2 “steady” miles

In the past when my training plans have called for steady runs, I usually just ignore the steady part haha. I’m not very good at holding a steady pace. In fact, that’s probably one of my biggest weaknesses as a runner. But instead of ignoring that this time, I took my run onto the treadmill instead! Because as long as you don’t mess with the speed on the treadmill too much, it pretty much forces you to run at a steady pace haha. But the thing is, I usually do interval stuff on the treadmill because constantly changing up the pace helps fight off the boredom of running on a treadmill. But I did manage to make this run a steady one and hopefully got a little bit stronger mentally by sticking it out at one pace on the treadmill haha. 🙂

Wednesday:

5 easy miles
30 minutes of yoga

So on Tuesday night I went to Luke’s softball games and ended up staying up a little too late, so I wasn’t too thrilled about having to wake up early on Wednesday morning. Getting out of bed and eating breakfast was hard. Getting dressed and getting out of the door was hard. But once I managed that things got considerably more easy. 😉 Then later in the afternoon I did a really nice yoga session. I didn’t realize how tight my body actually was until I got onto my yoga mat haha. But at least I did something about it and I ended up feeling pretty good afterward!

Thursday:

rest day

Thursday was actually supposed to be another strength day, but I was sore and tired and kinda had a feeling that if I did do a workout that my run the next day wouldn’t go as well. So I ended up sleeping in a little bit, I got to slow down and really enjoy my breakfast that morning. Then I worked on some blog posts, cleaned up around the house a little bit, did a little more yoga in the afternoon, and spent the rest of my day reading and relaxing. 🙂 There was a time when I would feel kind of guilty for not doing much of anything for a day, but rest is most definitely part of the program!! Not too long ago Alexi Pappas did a live stream on her Instagram account and said something to the affect of “days off are like allowing your body to marinate in you’re hard work”, and compared it to letting a steak marinate in the fridge for a day. For some reason that really got through to me and now I’m trying to take my off days more seriously and giving my training seep into my body a little bit more and not feel guilty that I “didn’t do anything that day” or didn’t hit my step goal or whatever.

Friday:

2 easy miles
about 10 minutes of strength work

My training plan called for a fartlek on Friday, but I didn’t really feel like doing a fartlek. That just didn’t sound like fun. So instead I just did a couple of easy miles. Noting fancy but it felt good! Followed that with a very very small amount of strength work, but I figure a little bit is better than nothing at all!

Then on Friday night we helped some friends move (more strength work? 😉 ) and then went out to dinner with them. We ended up staying out later than we’d planned, but it was a good time. 🙂

Saturday:

8 miles

Getting out of bed on Saturday morning was hard. It seems like no one in my life understands my need for sleep haha. I just don’t feel great if I don’t sleep for 8 hours a night. Luke thinks I’m just being a baby, but damn it I need to sleep! Haha anyway, I ended up getting up a little bit later that I would have liked, but it was cloudy and in the 70’s today, so I wasn’t too worried about it. It did start warming up more towards the end of my run, but at least I didn’t end up having to run in 80 or 90 degrees. That would have sucked! But all in all it was a pretty decent run and I had a pretty decent time doing it. 🙂

Sunday:

rest day

Since Sunday was a day off of running I took all three dogs out for walks. One at a time though haha. If I take more than one at a time they gang up on me and will drag me around town, chasing every squirrel we see! So while walking the dogs I was also playing Pokemon Go. Mostly catching pokemon, but I also battled and took over a gym. Now this has been kind of an ongoing thing, but there’s this guy in my town who always goes around taking over the gyms. He’s super annoying and a higher level than pretty much everyone else in my town, so today I made it my mission in life to keep him out of the gym closest to my house. Every time he’d take it over, I’d go over there and take it back. 3 times I took that gym from him. It was great hahaha! Luke even helped me take over a few gyms from him when he got home from work, but my main objective was to keep that one from him and I feel I was very successful that that. So yeah, that’s how I spent most of my day. 😉

Total Weekly Mileage: 20.12

Not exactly where I wanted to be at this point in the year, but I’ll take it! I feel like I’m off to a pretty good start for my training! This week was a good one, but there’s still a lot more work to be done! I’m excited to see what I can get done next week and throughout this entire training cycle!

Your currently very motivated runner friend,

~Ashley

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