Richmond Half Marathon Training Week 2

Well, this week started out rough but ended well.  And it was better than week 1 so that's a plus.  As I talked about last week, I was sick.  Well, I was still sick this week and the doctor gave me antibiotics on Tuesday.  I know it's not good to take too many antibiotics but this illness kept lingering and it felt like it was getting worse.  And once I started taking the antibiotics, it definitely got better.  So it was the right move.  Thanks to the medicine, I was able to get in all my runs last week though I didn't manage to get in any strength training.  Here are the details of the week.

Monday and Tuesday - rest days as I was still sick.  I got the antibiotics on Tuesday evening and things started to get better.

Wednesday - 3 miles - Felt a little better plus we got our house cleaned so we weren't living in a pile of construction dust any more.  I decided to go out for an easy run to see how it felt.  It was ok but definitely resulted in more coughing throughout the evening so it might have been premature.

Thursday - Rest day since I running the day before hadn't gone well for me.

Friday - 3 miles - Tried another easy run and the one went better.  I also had a cousin and her son visiting from out of town so we got together with them for dinner and enjoyed catching up.

 

I saw lots of bunnies while running this week!

Saturday - 3 miles - Woke up and went out for another easy run and this one went well too, in spite of the heat.  I forgot my sunblock which wasn't good.  I've got to get back in the habit of remembering to sunblock every time I go outside.  And we had a friend over in the evening to hang out.

Sunday -  6 miles.  Was able to get my long run done even though it was hot and sunny.  I guess I'm fully recovered now!  We also did a lot of errands and work on getting the house back into shape, moving things into the new closet, etc.  A movie theater near us is doing a Studio Ghibli festival this Summer so we went to the theater to see Kiki's Delivery Service.  It was a cute little movie but definitely slower paced than contemporary movies.

 

I loved this front yard I saw with a ton of sunflowers

I also did a lot of meal prep on Sunday.  I made my breakfasts and lunches for the week so they're easy to grab and go before heading to the office.  And Mike made Gazpacho so we have a couple weeknight dinners ready to go.  I'm hoping to get into the meal prep habit so it's easier to eat healthy all week instead of getting take out.

So that's my week.  I hope all of you had a great week as well!  Here's the plan for this week.

Monday - Rest day
Tuesday - 3 miles
Wednesday - Strength training
Thursday - 3 miles
Friday - Strength Training
Saturday - 5 miles
Sunday - 7 miles (2 miles easy, 2 miles marathon pace, 2 miles half marathon pace, 1 mile easy)

I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown!

House renovations

Yay, the renovations on the house are done!  I figured I'd join Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up and talk a bit about how the renovations went and share photos.

The initial estimate was 4-6 weeks and it took more than 10 weeks.  So that was definitely a struggle since we were working on both full bathrooms at the same time and didn't have a shower during that time.  We had to shower at the gym and that got old quickly.

The extra time was due to a couple things.  Are house was built in the 50s and is a little quirky.  There was a weird wall in the master bathroom that the contractor assumed could be removed.  Turned out, there were pipes and ducts hidden in there and the wall had to stay.  So that involved a change to the plan mid-project and some extra time.  The other thing is that a lot of old pipes were corroded and leaking and had to be replaced.  But it was good that we found out due to the renovations instead of due to a pipe bursting.  And now they're all new PVC pipes which should last much longer.

Here are some before and after photos.  We turned the old (small) master bathroom and closet into one big bathroom.

We also turned a spare bedroom that's next to the master bedroom into a closet.  We closed off the door into the hallway and added a door straight from the new closet to the master bedroom.

We re-did the hall bathroom.  This was just an update, no change in size or where things were located.

And with the basement, we got rid of the old carpet and drop ceiling plus added lighting.  It was always dark and dingy in there before and now it's much more inviting.

So that's it for work on the house for a while, fingers crossed! The house was also deep cleaned this week so we're not living in so much dust.  And Perry has come back to sitting on my lap so I think he's forgiven me for locking them up during the day for so long.  Shelby may take a little more coaxing but hopefully she'll forget about it soon too.

Richmond Half Marathon training week 1

I hope you're all doing well!  Sadly, I was sick again last week.  It's just a pretty bad cold but it did disrupt my training a bit.  At least it's only the first week of training and I still got in some good movement.  I think getting outside for even just a walk actually made me feel a bit better on those days.  And this week, the renovations on our house will be done!  I am so excited for this.  We have a deep cleaning scheduled Wednesday and I think that will help too.  I'm sure all the construction dust in our house hasn't been helping my cold at all.  But here are the details.

Monday - Planned rest day and I worked from home since I had a sore throat and didn't want to get anyone else sick.  Sadly, by the end of the evening, I could tell it was going to get worse as I had a low grade fever.

Tuesday - Unplanned rest day - I called in and took a sick day from work, took many naps and guzzled nyquil/dayquil.

Wednesday - 2 miles - I was a little better, I was able to work from home and to go out for a walk in the evening.

Thursday - Unplanned rest day - First day back in the office.  It went ok but I was exhausted by the time I got home.

Friday - 3 miles - lost my voice again and sounded like I was hacking up a lung when I coughed so I worked from home.  But I did manage to get out for a walk/run.  It was mostly walking but I threw in a little running when I could but it seemed to throw me into a coughing fit.

Saturday - Strength Training - Still sick but managed to get in some strength training.  I didn't want to brave the outdoors since we were in the middle of a heat wave.

Sunday - 5 mile run/walk - I had plans to meet up with a friend in the morning before the heat got too miserable.  We decided to take it easy and just run/walk and walk as much as needed.  We actually walked all of mile 2 since it was uphill.  Then we realized we were close to the outdoor outlet mall so we did our last 2 miles there.  I'm not sure the GPS was reading correctly there since it's weird that actually running/walking on mostly flat ground resulted in a 19 minute pace and walking uphill resulted in an 18 minute pace?  But it was still a good option.  There were bathrooms, water fountains, shade, and bursts of AC when we went by an open door.  And we were able to end with an iced drink from Starbucks!

Sadly, I am still not back to feeling better.  I went through two tissue boxes since Friday and I've brought another one to work with me today.  I have my voice back but it still sounds pretty bad.  And I'm having to try to sleep sitting up because lying down just results in coughing fits.  The cough isn't as bad as a couple days ago so I'm hoping that it's a good sign and I can get rid of this cold soon.

But here's the plan for this week, in anticipation that I'll feel better soon.

Monday - Rest day
Tuesday - 3 miles
Wednesday - Strength training (I might switch Tuesday and Wednesday depending on the weather)
Thursday - 3 miles
Friday - Strength Training
Saturday - 3 miles
Sunday - 6 miles

I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown!

Weekly Review

It was a mixed bag of a week.  I didn't get in all my workouts since I had my period during the week and then was traveling during the weekend.  But I also start training again this week so I'm ok with having a bit of a break last week :)  Here are the details.

Monday - 30 minutes on the elliptical plus weight lifting at the gym

Tuesday and Wednesday - Rest days since I was having cramps

Perry climbing on my chest to try to make me feel better :)

Thursday - 2.75 miles at an easy pace

Friday - rest day and driving to Cleveland for a wedding

Saturday - rest day with all day wedding stuff for an old family friend

Sunday - 40 minutes on the elliptical at the hotel before driving back home.

So that was the week.  This week is the start of training for the Richmond Half.  Here's the plan.

Monday - Strength training
Tuesday - 2.5 miles
Wednesday - Strength training
Thursday - 4 miles
Friday - Rest day
Saturday - 3 miles
Sunday - 5 miles

I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown!

Deciding on my next race

I had mentioned previously that I was struggling on trying to figure out what to do for my Fall half marathon.  I was trying to decide between the Richmond Half (it was my first half marathon back in 2014) and the Philadelphia Half (which would be a new race to me).

 

All smiles finishing my first half!

Both are races with great reputations and both are a similar distance from me, in easy driving distance.  Both have great crowd support and good swag.  I tried to research and both seem to have a similar amount of uphill.

Pros for Richmond - returning to a great race 5 years later, a little earlier in November so not as close to the holidays and maybe not as cold, a little cheaper, a bit of extra swag with the finisher's blanket.

 

Swag from the 2014 race

Pros for Philadelphia - a new race and a new city to explore, more scenic route, could visit my nephew at college.

As you can see, they're pretty similarly matched.  But after a lot of back and forth, I finally ended up deciding on Richmond!  It was pretty much the earlier weekend in November that did it for me.  The Philadelphia race is the weekend before Thanksgiving, which means I would have to travel the Wednesday or Thursday after the race.  It seemed like it would make my life easier to have a bit more distance in between the race and Thanksgiving.

I'm excited to have made the decision on my Fall race!  Next step is to start training.  The longest I've run since January's marathon is 8 miles.  And I want to continue working on improving my speed.  So this may be a bit of an ambitious training plan.

Weekly Review

I hope everyone had a good week last week!  Ours was full of super hot weather and some torrential rain.  But there was a holiday in there so an extra day off work and I was able to get back to working out.  So overall a pretty good week for me :)  Here are the details.

Monday - Rest day

Tuesday - 35 minutes on the elliptical to test out my back.  Yay, no pain!  We also had more plumbing issues and had to get another last minute hotel room :(  The plumber had warned us last time that he wasn't fully equipped to take care of the problem and we would have to have someone else in but we thought we could put it off longer.  I guess not.  Thankfully I was able to find a cheap hotel room that was literally walking distance from my office so that helped with the commute the next morning.  But we did have to drive through torrential rain to get to the hotel.

Wednesday - Rest day and another plumber was able to come by the house and fix things.  Mike talked to him and he felt that it was very clear this plumber had better equipment and that this was more than just a temporary fix.

Thursday - 45 minute run.  Yay for a day off work!  After my run, we had a pretty lazy day.  We made lunch (tempeh sloppy joes from Sun Basket), napped with kitties, and then went to see movies.  Our only goal was pretty much to hide from the crowds and the bad weather so we decided to make it a double feature.  We watched Toy Story 4, ate dinner at a brewery across the street, and then went back to the theater to watch Spider Man.  We enjoyed both movies and the dinner was pretty good too.  They had a rice bowl that's usually topped with meat but I was able to get them to put a black bean burger on it instead and it happened to be vegan.

Friday - Rest day.  I was working from home so that helped with the transition to another work day right before the weekend.

Saturday - 60 minute run.  It was hot and humid and sunny but I was just happy to be out there again without any pain.  We also had a bit of a scare with Shelby.  She was acting really lethargic and she wouldn't even get up for food, which is pretty unusual.  So we watched her carefully but thankfully she was back to her normal self by the next morning.  I guess she just wanted a lazy day too!

Sunday - 4 miles. All my runs have been at an easy pace since I'm not training for anything.  And it was a couple degrees cooler and back to being overcast this morning so that helped.  It rained again later in the day but I managed to just get a few droplets and nothing else.

So that was last week.  Thankfully all the runs went well.  I still had plenty of rest days in the week and didn't add in any strength training as I wanted to make sure my back was ok.  I think I'm going to get back to strength training this week.  Here's the plan.

Monday - Strength training
Tuesday - Treadmill
Wednesday - Rest day
Thursday - 3 mile run
Friday - Strength training
Saturday - Easy run
Sunday - Easy run

I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown!

Weekly review

I hope everyone's doing well!  Last week, I didn't have a single work out.  But I'm actually pretty happy with that :)  The reason is that I went and got a new tattoo.  My last one was more than 5 years ago and I had apparently forgotten about the recovery time.  Maybe it was also because this one was larger.  It took 5 hours and my quad was definitely bruised up afterward.  And I couldn't wear pants at all.  Even skirts and dresses were a little uncomfortable but I had to have something for work.

The fringe benefit of this enforced week of no working out is that my back is 100% and no pain any more!  I guess it just needed some rest complete rest time to get over the inflammation.  I have another chiropractor appointment tonight and hopefully following the tips she gave me will keep the back pain from coming back.

Here are some photos from the week since I don't have any work outs to share.

And there's a 26.2 in the Phoenix wing

 

We drove to Pittsburgh for a cousin's wedding Friday.  Friday evening was a restaurant with a beautiful view overlooking the river and getting some henna.

Saturday was the wedding and the reception.  It was a beautiful wedding and we had a lot of fun at the reception, including with a photo booth

So that was my week.  I'm planning to get back to working out this week.

Monday - Short, easy run
Tuesday - Rest day
Wednesday - strength training and elliptical
Thursday - An easy run
Friday - strength training
Saturday - Easy run
Sunday - Easy run

I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown!