Take Me Home Country Roads

When traveling, training can easily go down the drain, but this past week while visiting my mom I was able to get most of my workouts completed. With nothing on our agenda other than enjoying our time together, I had no excuses. I took advantage of Mom spending her mornings sewing, and completed my workouts then. Weather permitting, we spent our afternoons outside doing spring clean-up in her yard. She loves gardening, and I’ll be the first to admit that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree!

• Monday
• Strength Training – 1 hour
• Rodney Yee’s Complete Yoga For Beginners (affiliate link) – Yoga Basics
• Teeter Hang Ups – 15 minutes

I got up early on Monday and hit the weights in my basement, followed by hanging on my Teeter Hang Ups (affiliate link) before hopping in my SUV for my six-hour drive. After mom’s delicious dinner of my favorite mandarin orange salad, I pulled out my laptop and did one of my yoga routines. After sitting in the car so long, my body thanked me!

• Tuesday
• Interval Run – 1-mile warm-up, 3 x 1600 intervals at 7:59, 9:11, and 7:41 pace with 1-minute walking recovery, 1-mile cool-down
• Yoga For Flexibility
• Vigorous Gardening – 1 hour 20 minutes

After a great night’s sleep, I woke up and hit the gravel road for my interval workout. My Run Less Run Faster (affiliate link) training plan called for me to run 3 x 16oo hitting all at a 7:47 pace. I resigned myself that this would be nearly impossible on hilly gravels, but I gave it my best shot. I finished my first 1600 (mostly downhill) at 7:59, my second 1600 (mostly uphill) at 9:11, and my final 1600 (again, mostly downhill) at 7:41. I followed my run with a yoga routine, and then hung out with mom until after lunch.

Once lunch was over, I headed outside for a huge job. I wanted to carry these thirty bales of hay that had been stacked behind my mom’s garage as insulation during the winter back to store in the barn for the summer (so my brother wouldn’t have to on his next visit). I carried the lighter ones two at a time, but hauled the heavy ones in a wheel barrow from the yard, across the orchard, and to the fence. Once I got them all to the fence, I moved them on to the barn and stacked them inside. I finished quite exhausted, took a shower, and then a one-hour nap.

• Wednesday
• Strength Training – 42 minutes
• Bike – ~ 16.5 miles – 1:07:12
• Yoga for Energy

I slept in a little bit on Wednesday morning and as soon as I got up, I went to Mom’s basement and hopped on Dad’s old Schwinn Airdyne bike (affiliate link). While pedaling away and feeling a wonderful closeness to my dad, I perused my phone reading comments to my Wednesday Word post. I came across Judy’s comment to Goodbye For Now, Dad, a tribute I’d written to Dad shortly after he passed away. Her kind words reminded me of how close Dad and I were. Her timing was perfect!

After riding Dad’s bike, I did a modified strength training workout of pushups, lunges, squats, oblique V-ups, planks, side planks, quadrudped, supine bridges, and a few shoulder and arm exercises with Mom’s dumbbells. My biceps were a little sore from throwing hay bales around on Tuesday! I finished off my workout with a yoga session, all while Mom sewed doll clothes for my great-niece.

After lunch we headed back outside to scratch the cat’s bellies do some yard work. Callie and Hobbes (yes, named after Calvin and Hobbes) are the two neediest cats I’ve ever met. They constantly meow for attention, then flop over to get their bellies scratched.

Hobbes

Callie

• Thursday 
• Extremely Hilly Tempo Run – 1-mile warm-up at 10:28, 6 tempo miles at 9:24, 9:22, 12:29, 8:54, 9:30, 11:16 and 1-mile cool-down at 10:35
• Yoga For Flexibility
• Light Gardening – 30 minutes

I was caught off guard with a longer tempo run on my schedule this week. When I saw that the total mileage was eight, I knew exactly where I wanted to run. It’s almost exactly four miles from my mom’s house to the cemetery where my dad is buried and I decided to run there and back. It’s an extremely hilly run so I knew it would be impossible for this flatlander to hit those middle six miles at a 10K pace as directed. I can’t say that I’ve ever taken walk breaks during a tempo run before, but what I missed in speed, I made up for in strengthening from those hills.

Check out just one of those hills I had to climb. Follow it up and up and up…

• Friday
• Nothing, but I drove 325 miles! Does that count?

After a fun and relaxing five days with my mom, I hit the road around 9:30 AM on Friday so I could meet Meagan for an early lunch at the Draper Mercantile, an absolutely charming restaurant and shop. We both enjoyed a chef salad while catching up and talking about our upcoming runs together. It’s hard to believe that our Ragnar Trail Richmond weekend is less than four weeks away. We’ll be running buddies on two separate “sister” teams so we’ll be running all of our legs together. We’re on ultra teams and will be running about 30 miles spread out over three runs. We should have plenty of time to catch up! 

After a fun break, I hit the road again and rolled into home around 5:30 PM. Bill had made dinner reservations for 6:45 at DC Prime, so after unpacking and a quick change of cloths, another amazing meal awaited me – filet mignon, roasted asparagus, sautéed mushrooms, and a glass or two of Pinot Noir!

•  Saturday
• Long Run – 8.1 trail miles at 11:55 average pace
• Strength Training – 1 hour
• Yoga For Relaxation
• Teeter Hang Ups – 15 minutes

Some of the members of my Ragnar Trail Richmond team and I met at Kephart Bridge Landing, a new to me trail, on Saturday morning. It was gloomy and raining when we started, but the rain stopped and then held off until we’d almost finished our run. 

We had so much fun, but why would that surprise me? These ladies are amazing! Fortunately Erin grabbed me and kept me from falling as I almost tripped stepping backwards to get closer to my teammates – anything for a good picture, right?

We had to run on the golf cart road for a short segment of our run when the trail stopped and we had about a quarter mile to go until our turnaround. When I suggested a picture, Erin came up with this idea! My husband says we look like we should be on the cover of a 1970’s rock band album cover! 

When it’s overcast, it’s hard to get good action pictures with my GoPro (affiliate link), but I tried. Sorry for the blurriness, but I wanted to share a picture of us running.

After we completed six miles, three of our friends needed to leave. Four of us wanted to tack on two more miles and headed in the opposite direction of the trail from where we’d started. We had heard that it was more technical heading that way and it was at places. Much of it, though, ran along Goose Creek keeping us entertained with ducks, geese, and a blue heron.

After slacking on Friday, I made up my workouts on Saturday with a late afternoon weight training session. Since I’d run eight miles and then lifted, I chose to do an easier yoga workout. While at my mom’s I had plenty of time to do yoga immediately after running and loved the wonderful stretch I’d get. I would love to have time to do yoga after all of my runs! 

• Sunday
• Rodney Yee’s Intermediate Yoga (affiliate link) – Integration section
• Teeter Hang Ups – 15 minutes

Today  has been a relaxing day, and I’m not complaining at all. It’s time to recharge before heading back to work tomorrow!

Weekly Overview:

• Weight Training: Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday
• Run: Tuesday – 5 miles , Thursday – 8 miles, Saturday – 8.1 miles (Total: 21.1 miles)
• Bike: Wednesday – 16.5 miles 
• Yoga: Daily, except Friday
• Teeter Hangups: Monday, Saturday, and Sunday
• Average Steps Per Day: 14,073
• Average Hours Sleep Per Night: 7:44

• Questions:
• Do you have pets? If so, what and what are their names? 
• Do you enjoy driving? ~ My right leg bothers me after about an hour unless I can drive in cruise control. 🙁
  
• 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!