By the time you’re reading this, I will hopefully be well on my way home after a fun, busy, yet relaxing ten days visiting my mom. The plan is to get on the road early to avoid heavy traffic on Interstate-81 where I will spend the majority of my day – Virginia is a huge state. 

Here’s a quick recap of my time at my mom’s house, and by the way, the overnight temperature got down into the fifties most nights. Every morning when I headed out to run or paint it was still in the low sixties with the exception of yesterday morning when it was in the higher sixties. It warmed up most days into the high nineties, but the nights cooled down delightfully.

Hobbes (top) and Callie (bottom) were more than happy to help me do some exterior painting and gardening; and by helping, I mean meow for scratches on their heads. Hobbes also tried to put his signature on the wet paint and ended up with an off-white side.

 

I ran three times on a variety of country roads and trails this past week while in Southwestern Virginia. Two of my runs were near my mom’s house. For additional pictures of the gorgeous countryside, check out my Instagram or my bear hunting post.

 

Saturday morning I woke up to dense fog. When I left the valley to drive to Hungry Mother State Park, I was nervous that the mountain might be foggy creating dangerous driving conditions.

 

As soon as I started driving up the mountain I drove out of the fog. I stopped on top to take a picture of the valley below shrouded in fog.

 

Once at Hungry Mother State Park, I found Meagan and we headed out for our run. We hadn’t seen each other since we ran together last fall at Pandapas Pond. Meagan has had a couple of encounters with bears during trail runs, and it was with her on Saturday that I finally found that elusive bear! 😉

It was so cool running through the Hungry Mother Arts & Crafts Festival. The booths were set up on each side of the trail through one section so we kept our eyes peeled for anything we might want to stop back for after our run.  And no, I didn’t return to buy the bear.

 

After our loop around the lake, I headed out solo for another couple of miles .

 

Looking ahead to this coming week, I’m going to share my mom’s and my “week in salads” on Tuesday. She likes salads as much as I do and we had a field day creating a variety of delicious dishes that would make a carnivorous rabbit pleased. On Thursday, I plan to post my interview with a local athlete who has transitioned from running ultras to becoming an Ironman, and on Friday, I hope to linkup with Marcia for her monthly Runfessions. Stay tuned!

In case you missed it, this past week I posted the following articles:

 

In addition to the runs I mentioned above, here’s a run-down of other workouts I completed this past week, and no, I didn’t count the nine hours I spent painting as cross training…

 

Fitness tools beyond the equipment in my gym that I used during the week included: 

Cameras used for blog photography include:

 

  • Questions:
  • Do you like cats, dogs, both, or neither?  ~ Both for me!
  • Are you a fan of arts and crafts festivals?
  • Did you race this weekend? 

 

Have a great week!

 

Disclaimer:  This post contains affiliate links which means if you click on the blue product link and then make a purchase, I will receive a commission for referring you. You will pay no more or less for the product; however, Amazon will show their gratitude for my referral by paying me.

 

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I’m linking up with Holly at HoHo Runs and Tricia from MissSippiPiddlin for their Weekly Wrap.  Be sure to check out not only the hosts, but the other great bloggers joining in on the fun!

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