Last Sunday morning I mentioned that Bill and I were getting ready for a biking date with Deborah and Courtney. Deborah had reached out to me about riding together after seeing a picture on Instagram that I had posted of the LOVE sculpture in Leesburg, VA.

Deborah drove to our house and the three of us hopped on our neighborhood trail and rode the 1.5 miles to the W&OD Trail where Courtney was waiting for us. Courtney wanted to ride farther and had started in Reston and ridden to where we would be getting on the W&OD.

All together, we rode to the far side of Leesburg. At that point, Bill continued on to Purcellville and we turned to ride back to the sculpture.

 

Once we’d gotten to the Leesburg Public Arts LOVE sculpture we took pictures before heading into Portside Coffee for muffins, scones, and water. It was great to get to know Deborah and Courtney better. I’d only met Deborah once at the For The Love Of It 10K and subsequent coffee date, and this was the first time I’d had the opportunity to meet Courtney.

 

Remember last week when I talked about Black Kitty stalking me on my runs? On Monday morning I saw him out again, this time with his human and two dog brothers. I asked my neighbor what the kitty’s name is and learned that it’s Cosmos. Anyway, it was the cutest thing, my neighbor was walking his two small dogs on their leashes and Cosmos was about three steps behind. He followed them all the way around our circle which is a half mile. Since I was running in the opposite direction, I saw them a few times. I regret not taking a picture, but didn’t want to appear creepy. 😉 Instead, here’s a different picture from last week’s encounter.

 

I continued on with my run and eventually ventured out onto the parkway. It was 67° and humid and as the sun started to rise (I’d started my run at 5:15 AM), I could see thunderheads (cumulonimbus clouds) forming, something I don’t remember ever seeing at sunrise. It was really quite an interesting sunrise, but I had to turn and head inside to get ready for work so I missed the complete show.

 

I ran a couple hours later than usual on Wednesday and was treated to delightful weather following the wake of storms that moved through on Tuesday afternoon and evening. I ran on the trails behind our house and even took a detour to run along the lake.

 

On Friday, we drove to the farm for our annual family reunion on Friday evening and all day yesterday. It’s so nice to see my aunts, uncles, and cousins on my mom’s side of the family each summer. Bill drove home today, but I’m staying with my mom for the week. 😎

While at the family reunion, I talked to one of my cousins about running his first marathon (Baltimore) last fall. He lost about 50 pounds in the process and is completely hooked! He and I made plans to possibly meet in Harper’s Ferry / Shepherdstown in October for the Freedom’s Run marathon for my cousin, half for me.

I didn’t even think to ask my cousin if he planned to run on Saturday morning. I wish I had; instead, while he was running seven miles, I caught up on some sleep and didn’t get up until 7:30. It would have been fun to have a running partner while visting family!

And finally, about my blog… If you’re reading from a mobile phone or tablet you may not see much of a difference, but if you’re reading from a laptop or desktop, you were probably quite surprised when my site loaded. Last night I updated my theme and boom, things went haywire and turned into a hot mess as soon as it finished updating. This happened once before about four years ago, and it took me six months to finally get it straightened out when Evolve (my theme of choice) eventually fixed the bug in their software. That time, I switched to a different theme in the interim; but this time, I may take this as a sign to finally update my theme to a custom one I’ve been thinking about. Of course, this happens while I’m at my mom’s house where the internet is slower and everything takes longer…

Before the update…

 

After the update…

 

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

 

Looking ahead to this coming week…

  • Tuesday – I’ll be looking back at running my first road race and comparing my pre-race breakfast to what I eat today prior to racing.
  • Thursday – I’ll be joining in again on the runfessions fun with Marcia.

 

In addition to the exercise I mentioned above, here’s a complete run-down of my workouts from this past week (completed mostly in our home gym)…

 

  • Questions:
  • Does anyone else in your family run – spouse, kids, parents, siblings, cousins, etc?  
  • Does your family/extended family have annual reunions?
  • Did you race this weekend?

 

And that’s a wrap… 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 Wendy from Taking The Long Way Home for their Weekly Wrap. Be sure to check out not only the hosts’ posts, but the other great bloggers joining in on the fun!