Monday June 8^th—Running rest days are my favorite! It allows me to sleep in (FYI: sleeping in for me is like 7:30-8:00am) Unfortunately today my daughter was up before it was even 6:30am. Ugh!! So, I changed my attitude and got up. I had my coffee, gave her breakfast and got out for a bike ride before work. I guess it was a blessing in disguise as I have been ignoring my bike a bit since last week because of the virtual challenges that I am doing. Miles running or walking count, but cycling does not. I also got out for a 5 mile walk after work! It was a great Monday!

Tuesday June 9^th—Today is finally my daughter’s birthday! She is finally 7 years old. We had already been celebrating her over the last few days. I took off work so that I could spend the day doing whatever she wanted (even though we still can’t really go anywhere). On the schedule was 7 miles and it was to be a progression run where I started easy around 9:00-9:30 pace and have my last mile be down to 7:45. Happy to say that my last two miles were 7:59 and 7:42. Then I ran 3 more miles easy paced for my virtual challenge.

The rest of the morning we hung inside and then I took them for Chic Fila drive thru lunch- yum!  Then back home and we put up our huge little tikes water slide thing for the kids on the street.  She played with them for hours. Then we cleaned up and went over to my parent’s house for dinner and cake.

Wednesday June 10^th—Today started as a doozy🥱. I wanted to get up early so that I could add on more miles on top of my scheduled 5 miles. That did not happen. I shut my alarm off and woke up around 7:30am. Ever have one of those days? Yikes! It’s like the worst way to start a day ever, in my opinion. I quickly drank my coffee and ate my granola bar, got dressed and flew out the door to get in my 5. Then a rush to shower and get dressed and get into the office. The last few weeks I have been going into my office 2x per week. The rest of the week I work from home but going in has been great because working from home is challenging with my two kids around. It takes 30 mins to get to my office, so you have to factor that in when planning your day!

In case anyone is ever curious about what I have AFTER my run I’ll share that here. I have been having this shake after my runs since late last year (December). We got a Vitamix as our Christmas present for each other and I LOVE it. I use 3-4 bananas, ice, almond milk, scoop of PB, flaxseeds, chia seeds, cocoa powder and some plant-based protein (chocolate flavored of course). It’s so good and I have not gotten sick of it. It keeps me full thru lunch and then in the afternoon I might do 2 apples with peanut butter or Greek yogurt with strawberries. I’m a creature of habit and am okay with eating the same things every single day. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that but I’m also sure that you all might get sick of eating the same thing; I get it!

Also, I did not bike tonight as we went over to our neighbor’s house to hang outside so they kids could play and the adults could have a beverage. It truly was nice because my kids play so well with their kids and I ended up having 1 ½ glasses of wine! I don’t really drink anymore so I was feeling good🤪!

Thursday June 11^th—On the schedule today was 7 miles with some speed work build in. I always feel a little weary when my coach puts speed work on the schedule since the track is still locked. It’s as if I feel like running on the street is different from the track. Well in some ways it is. The streets are filled with cars, and people, and people with kids and dogs and lights and you get my drift. It’s not like running around the track where you literally have really no interruptions and can go all out knowing that any of the above things I mentioned won’t get in your way and make you stop. I mean, and also, I don’t want to come across as mean but why, and I truly am asking WHY, do I have to always move when I’m out running for someone that is WALKING? I don’t think I will ever get it. I’m the one who is exerting WAY MORE ENERGY but these walkers never ever move. Hmmmmm. Someone clue me in.

The workout today was 1 mile warm up.  Then run 200m hard in mile 2, 400m hard in mile 3, 600m hard in mile 4, 800m hard in mile 5, 1000m hard in mile 6, and then cool down 1 mile. My hard was supposed to be between 7:00-7:15 and my easy is 9:17-9:05.  I could not get down below 7:20 during any of my intervals.  Am I worried about it? Nope!  I did the best I could at that moment and have moved on.  I will get it next time. It’s my effort that counts! 

After my scheduled run I ran another 4 easy paced miles to close off the day at 11 miles.  Afterwork I got out for a bike ride and it felt great. I clocked in 15 miles!  What a great day!

Friday June 12^th—Now this was a day where I set my alarm for PM, not AM. Geez. I am having one of those weeks🙃. I heard my husband get up and it was before 6am and thought that I had a few minutes left until my alarm would go off. Well, ended up getting up around 7ish instead. Thankful for my internal alarm clock helping get my butt up!! I got out for my 5 easy paced miles and then another rush back to get ready for the office.

I skipped the bike ride tonight because I got home a little earlier because they were doing a drive by parade for the local high schoolers, so we did that, and then hung outside the rest of the night. Sometimes you got to go with having fun versus working out.

Saturday June 13^th—Today was day 1 of our virtual BibRave summit!  We started off doing a virtual 5 mile run that had a scavenger hunt built in. The app we used was having issues so I only got 4 of the clues.  All in all it was a lot of fun and I definitely would be up for doing another scavenger hunt run!  On my running schedule for today was 14 miles so the first 5 was for BibRave and then I went on to do another 9 miles.  I stopped home around mile 7 to use the bathroom and fill up my water bottle.  I then headed over towards the track.  It’s been locked up for months and I had walked past it on Monday when I was on my walk and it was still closed.  Much to my surprise when I ran over to it today it WAS OPEN!!! Dude.  So excited, like a kid at Christmas.  I ran 3 miles on it while I was there and then made my way home. 

Had time for a quick shower and then had to hop on the zoom calls we had scheduled.  It was nice to ‘see’ everyone live on zoom, and then we broke into smaller meetings so that we could have a chance to get to know each other better. Then we had an awesome meeting with questions for Jess and Tim, the co-founders of BibRave.  It as neat to learn more about the future of BibRave and more about Jess and Tim.  Our last meeting of the day was a TikTok lesson.  I am so old that I was like there is no way that I am using this app LOL. But like anything else, I need to embrace it and figure it out. 

After all of those zoom calls I decided that my legs were rested enough and dragged myself out for my 3^rd bike ride of the week. I knew that if I wanted to run more than what I had scheduled tomorrow it may be tough to get out so why not just do it today! I’m glad I did. I clocked in 13 miles and enjoyed my ride. Then back home to figure out dinner and hang outside with neighbors and kids until after dark.

Sunday June 14^th—Second day of the BibRave Summit.  Our calls weren’t until later in the day so I knew I didn’t need to get up super early, YAY! 7:30am is when I dragged myself out of bed and man my body felt like an old car.  Just chugging along. How in the heck was I gonna manage to do my scheduled 6 miles plus more? I needed some coffee to think about it.  All of that coffee and sitting got me feeling good and that helped PUSH me out of the door. Sometimes that is truly the hardest part about running or doing anything really. It’s taking that step to move forward. It was another cooler morning where there was no humidity and no heat.  Super nice for running! My run today was 6 miles with the first 3 miles at easy pace (9:17-9:05) and then 3 miles at moderate pace (8:45-8:30). My splits were 9:26, 8:54, 9:04, 8:19, 8:31 and 8:13.  That first mile though… it was like I was going in slow motion.  You know what I’m talking about it!  You can never trust the first mile. Sometimes it takes 2-3 miles before your body is feeling good!  I then stopped home for a bathroom break and some more water and headed out for 4 more easy paced miles. That last mile was super hard and I had to dig deep to get it done for my virtual challenge. 

Then to shower and make my shake and then do my posts and feed the kids and then do my zoom calls with BibRave. It was a great virtual summit weekend. I can’t wait until next year when we can all meet in person.  I ended up going over to see my mom later and we walked 3 miles together. I ended the week with 8 miles walking, 55 miles running and 40 miles biking. What a great week I had!