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Happy Easter

To those celebrating Easter, may all the joys and blessings of this beautiful season be with you. May the renewal of life at Easter bring hope, love, good health, happiness, and peace to your family and loved ones.

Overview of the Week

Before discussing each day’s workouts, here’s an overview of my workouts from this past week. Scroll down for daily details…

 

Sunday

After severe storms and torrential rain during the previous 24 hours, the sun came out around 1:30 PM and I headed out for a run. Almost as quickly as I started running, the clouds thickened and a light drizzle started to fall. At 62° it was very muggy and I regretted not wearing a tank.

The 1-mile long gravel road had been severely damaged and where there weren’t deep ruts, water was pooled several inches deep. Just as I was wrapping up my run and got back to the mailbox, the start and finish line of my double loop, I realized that I’d forgotten to restart my Garmin (affiliate link) after I’d stopped to talk to the VDOT driver who was was out assessing the storm’s damage. Of course I did what any good runner would do and jogged back about a quarter mile to the point of our conversation, restarted my watch, and ran back to the mailbox. My overall pace for my 4-mile run was 10:12, not bad considering that my run consisted of dodging deep ruts, running through ankle deep water, and slogging through mud.

 

Rivulets of water running down the middle of the road…

 

Rushing water carved out huge ruts in the road…

 

Once home from my adventuresome run, I stretched and foam rolled with my Grid roller (affiliate link). It’s very handy to have for traveling, but takes longer to use since it’s half the length of my Rumble roller (affiliate link) and I have to do each leg individually. The grid is also not as intense and great to use when first getting into (or back into) rolling.

 

Monday

With a total chill day, I resisted the temptation of pulling out Mom’s dumbbells and exercise bands and stuck with my plan to rest from strength training for a week. I religiously strength train three days a week and every once in a while I like to give myself a break. Last Friday was a travel day and the start of my rest from lifting.

I’d planned a solo gravel adventure on my bike; however, with the condition of the gravel roads, I opted to skip my ride. Instead, I spent the afternoon gardening and dug up peonies to transplant into my garden at home. Peonies from the farm will be much more special than any purchased at a nursery even though they’ll take a couple of years to establish (peonies don’t transplant well, especially in the spring).

Not peonies, but beautiful all the same…

 

Tuesday

Since Mom and I needed to leave her house around 10:30 AM for an eye appointment, I was out the door for my run by 7:20. I expected the road to be muddy from the weekend’s storms, but was surprised to see how much water was still flowing across the road in places – the road was in the best shape in the particular place where I stopped to take a picture of the sun first hitting the hillside.

 

Wednesday

I woke up to steady rain and ditched any hopes of an early morning walk. My alternative plan had been to walk in town while my mom’s car was being given the once-over during its state safety inspection, but with the steady rain continuing, I hung out in the shop’s waiting room where I struck up a conversation about trail running with the guy behind the desk. I learned that he was an avid runner prior to a back injury. Sound familiar?

 

Thursday

Once home from our six-hour drive from the farm, we were both exhausted. Bill for good reason since he’d driven home on Sunday and back down on Wednesday evening to pick me up – he’d hoped to stay the entire time, but something came up at work…

I needed to move my body so I planted the peonies I’d transplanted from my mom’s garden. So far they look great and here’s hoping they do well and bring a smile to my face and make me think of Mom each time I see them. As any good gardener knows, one thing lead to another and suddenly two hours had passed.

 

Friday

Back home and in my routine, I saw my first client at 6:30 AM and then easily fit in my own strength training workout in my free time before my next client appointments began. I also got in 15 minutes of stretching during the balance and stretching class I teach on Facebook Live. Immediately after finishing with my clients I spent the afternoon playing catch-up from being out of town for a week, and hit up Costco, the grocery store, etc. in preparation for Easter. I finished the day more exhausted than I’ve been in ages and went to bed early.

 

Saturday

With overnight temps getting down into the 20’s, Bill and I didn’t leave for our ride until late morning after it started to warm up. Even with the air temperature at 46° (felt like 42°) at our start in Middleburg, the wind cut right through us and we stayed cold for most of the ride even though the temperature climbed to 54° by the time we finished. It wasn’t until we were back in our car that we finally warmed up completely.

I definitely plan to recap this ride later in the week because I want to be able to refer back to it and never do it again! The ride included climbing Bull Run Mountain on gravel, but that wasn’t the hard part, it got even steeper later with two almost mile-long climbs at ridiculous grades and both on loose gravel. We climbed a total of 2,800 feet over a mere 27 miles.

The scenery was beautiful, though, and like most rides in western Loudoun and Fauquier Counties, history was all around us.

 

Here’s What You Might Have Missed

In case you skipped checking in on my blog this past week, here’s what you missed…

 

Questions:
  • • Have you completed a ride, run, or hike and declared that you never wanted to repeat that route?
  • • How’s the weather in your neck of the woods? Have you had torrential rain, high winds, snow, or perfect spring-like weather?
  • • Did you run in a race this weekend? If so, was it live or virtual?

 

And that’s my rundown… Have a great week!

 

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I’m linking up with Deborah at Confessions of a Mother Runner and Kim from Running on the Fly for their Weekly Run Down. Be sure to check out not only the hosts’ posts, but those of the other great bloggers joining in on the fun!

 

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 small 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.