Tag Archives: garden

Week 9 Training Recap: 4/16 – 4/22

23 Apr

Week 9 of my 18-week training plan is done, which means… I’m halfway there!

I’m very excited for the next stage of marathon training (it’s uncharted territory for me!), though I know that it’s going to be challenging to stay motivated for the longer distances after work. At least it’s light and warm outside, right?

Last week’s training:

Monday: Rest

Tuesday: 2.58 mile run, untimed; PT strength exercises

I was expecting this run to feel like crap after the previous Sunday’s half marathon PR, but my legs actually felt amazing. What didn’t feel amazing, however, were my blistered feet. I turned around early, cutting 3 miles to 2.5.

Wednesday: 4.1 mile fartlek run (43:36; 10:38/mile)

My legs felt a little slow and tired this day (maybe from strength training on Tuesday?), but pace was decent.

Thursday: 7.88 mile tempo run (1:24:51; 10:46/mile)

I didn’t intentionally run this as a tempo run but it’s at a tempo pace, so I’ll take it.

Friday: Rest

Saturday: 9.93 mile long run (1:55:36; 11:38/mile)

More details below.

Sunday: Rest

Total Running Miles = 24.39

………………………

On Saturday morning, Travis and I drove out to DIA to have breakfast with my parents, who were at the airport during a layover on their way to Mexico. I ate a Belgian waffle, covered with bananas and strawberries, topped with syrup. That, along with getting out of my long run routine (even though it was worth it to see my parents!), and being ridiculously tired, made for a tough long run.

I got up to Boulder around 11 and since it was in the high 60s/low 70s, I wore my Aspaeris Pivot compression shorts under my new running skirt. The combination worked really well, although I did miss my 2XU compression tights a bit. One of my favorite features of the running skirt is that the inside of the waistband has “silicon strips” (aka sticky rubber) so that it doesn’t slide up while you’re running. Genius!

From the very start of the run, I just wasn’t into it. I could name a dozen other things I would rather have been doing – and at the top of that list was sleeping. I was just so. tired. But I had driven all the way up to Boulder to run 10 miles so I sucked it up and just ran at an easy pace. It was a gorgeous day and I didn’t get too hot at all during the run (though I was sweating quite a bit), but the whole time I was counting down the miles so that I could be done.

I don’t know if it was the 8 miles on Thursday or running at a slower pace or not stretching as much this past week, but by about mile 7, my legs started to hurt. Specifically my left glute and IT band/knee. Uh oh. (Although two years ago, it was my right IT band/knee that kept me from running the full Malibu Marathon). I’m putting my money on the whole “not stretching enough” thing and am really going to buckle down on that for the second half of the plan. It’s not that I don’t want to stretch – I just fit my weekday runs in right before dashing off to a church function so I don’t have time to stretch. But one of those meetings is ending tomorrow so that will help.

Yesterday, instead of doing yoga or walking, I took a nap and we planted our garden.

It was fun being outside but man, gardening is hard on the body! We have those fences up because of the dogs (even though they don’t stop them from getting in) and my back and legs were not happy with bending over them to plant things. I can crouch down for about 2 minutes before they demand that I stop. I don’t see a lot of gardening in my future before the marathon.

My tulips are happy at least (though I want to plant more this fall so they’re not so spread out).

On Saturday, Travis put down landscaping fabric and mulch on the back of our house:

It looks so much better!

I had been thinking about going to hot yoga this past Sunday – but we had a church meeting at the same time. Next Sunday, I’m going to a baby shower, and the Sunday after that, we’re going camping. So hot yoga has been rescheduled to May 13. Maybe that means I can convince some friends to join me…

I have some interesting observations about marathon training coming up soon!

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Our Vegetable Garden

24 May

In my last post, I mentioned that we planted our vegetable garden this past weekend (finally!). We probably won’t get much produce before August or September but it will be fun to watch them grow over the next couple of months and then reap the benefits!

We followed the Square Foot Gardeningtechnique taught by Mel Bartholomew. Thus, our cute little 4′ x 4′ boxes:

Our Lovely Little Garden

The idea of this technique is that by eliminating space between rows and growing your vine plants vertically instead of along the ground, you can have more garden in less space. I like that idea! Since we planted so late, we bought mostly plants from our local nursery but some fast-growing plants (spinach, green beans, carrots, and sugar snap peas) we are (attempting to) grow from seeds.

Please note the deliberate fencing effort. That was to keep the dogs out. Yesterday afternoon, we caught Katy inside the garden. She had jumped the fence. Argh!
A few more pics of our landscaping and garden:
 
 
Look at how green everything is! That will be gone in a month because of the Colorado dryness (we actually got over 4 inches of rain this month – almost a record!) I’m enjoying it while it lasts.

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Goodbye reading goal?

23 May

This weekend was extremely productive. For some reason, I have started waking up without an alarm clock. I still set it because I’m very wary of this alertness before the crack of dawn. So after going to bed at 10:30 on Friday night (because I was absolutely exhausted), I woke up at 7:15 on Saturday. After watching the morning news, getting in the Word, eating breakfast, and waking Travis up for our bike ride in Boulder, I gave both pooches a bath and dyed my hair. (I used the new Clairol Nice ‘n’ Easy Foam color – it was very easy to use and I really liked how my hair turned out… except that it’s almost the same color it was before I dyed it.)

Then came our bike ride in Boulder – 17 miles around the Boulder Reservoir. I’m very proud of my husband for surviving it, considering he hasn’t ridden a bike in a couple of years. And I was very pleased with our time: 16.73 miles in 1:04. I’ll ride faster during the race because I was purposefully riding slower than I would have for my husband, who was riding an old mountain bike. So not only was he not in biking shape, he was riding a heavy, knobby-tired hunk of metal. Isn’t he the sweetest for coming with me?

After our bike ride, we ate lunch at Harpo’s Sports Grill (we had a gift cert), then went home where Travis mowed the lawn and I went to pick up my prescription (and a few other non-essentials) at Walmart. Travis had suggested I buy him a gun safe as an anniversary present so we went to Gander Mountain for that, and then to the liquor store for tequila so we could make frozen margaritas with our new full-size blender (Travis’ present to me). Mmmm…. margaritas.

On Sunday, I got up at 6:30 to run 5 miles, then we went to church, REI, and then the nursery to buy plants for our vegetable garden. After planting and fencing off our vegetable garden (no pooches allowed!), I went to the grocery store, finished doing laundry, and went to bed at 9:45. Whew!

One unfortunate side effect of this busyness, however, is that my reading has plummeted to being almost non-existent. In the past month and a half, I haven’t finished a single book. I’ve read maybe a grand total of 30 pages. Sad day. Part of the reason for my hiatus has been that reading mentally stimulating books when I have a thousand things going on just isn’t possible. I can’t engage with the book. Instead, I end up either reading the same paragraph over and over or reading several pages only to realize I’m completely lost. The other part of the reason is that it just isn’t a priority right now — and it’s not going to be until life slows down a bit. What happened to the days and nights on end of having nothing to do? Oh wait, they all got channeled into my time at work.

It doesn’t look like it’s going to better any time soon either. This coming weekend, we’re camping and while I might be able to fit some reading time in while Travis is fishing, it will be minimal. The weekend after that is my first sprint triathlon, the Boulder Sunrise; the weekend after that is the Greeley Sprint Triathlon; the weekend after that, we’re going to visit friends down in Divide, CO; and the weekend after that, we might have a barbeque at our house. There is some downtime in there and I am for sure going to need some rest after doing back-to-back triathlons – but it’ll probably come mostly in the form of naps. I am really looking forward to a weekend with nothing we *have* to do (if it ever comes…) so that I can sit down with a book and relax.

I do feel God’s blessing in the midst of this busy season, though. Having learned that I am only called to be faithful in doing what God has assigned to me for the day and leaving the rest to Him has given me unexpected energy when I feel like I should be dead tired, overwhelmed, and mopey. Instead, I have excitement, enjoyment, and hope. In fact, I actually enjoyed digging in the dirt yesterday to plant our garden. I am very excited to see the plants grow and produce fruit (I’ll post pics and more info later). It makes me feel like I’m really taking advantage of God’s bounty and joy in creation. Plus, I love fruits and vegetables!

All that say, whereas I had been contemplating the goal of reading 50 books in a year (the past several years, I’ve only averaged 25 or so), that goal may have to be sacrificed for some peace and sanity. Goals are just a means of achieving what you really desire and value. They are not ultimate. God, and the joy found in Christ, are.

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