Week in review Aug. 21-27: Eat junk food, work late, run

Just running this week.

I’m trying to be gentle with myself because last week was tough with two evening work events, but whenever I have a less-than-ideal training week I tend to beat myself up for not doing more with the time I had. Story of my life. So, I focused on one thing, fitting in runs, and bagged everything else.

I did an easy run Monday with my husband, who takes priority training-wise since I’m trying to be supportive and encouraging when he wants to run. (I am still working on him to become An Actual Runner.) Tuesday was a 14-hour work day, and Wednesday was a 10-hour work day, so I didn’t even bother. I spent a couple hours Wednesday doing some grocery shopping and mid-week food prep to get me through the week.

Thursday's and Friday’s runs were enjoyable; it had cooled down quite a bit and I didn’t even bring water with me on Thursday. I went back and forth with how far to go on Friday, but ended up calling it at just less than an hour so I could go home, shower, and relax.

I really did have good intentions to ride and lift on Saturday. We have been going to the farmers market with our bachelor friend, who has been trying to eat healthier, and often asks me for advice. While it’s very flattering (and makes me feel like I have ONE THING going right in my life) if we run errands afterward, like we did Saturday, motivation to work out later in the day is in short supply. I got home and started thinking about everything I needed to do to go for a ride, and I needed to do it RIGHT NOW if I wanted to hit the street closed to traffic before it re-opened, and I just couldn’t summon the energy. I tried, I really did.

We ended up putting in a couple of hours at our garden instead, which turned out to be the perfect afternoon. The dogs got to play and eat grass, I went on a tomato side shoot chopping spree, everything got watered, and I took home a bunch of ripe squash, eggplant, green peppers, and tomatoes. (My kale is almost done and my cucumbers all died… sad face.) Later on, we met up with friends camping at a nearby state park to sit by their campfire and chat. It was awesome!

I did rally yesterday (Sunday) afternoon for an easy-ish 9-miler. I drove to the river for a change of scenery and it was just what I needed. My left hip has been a little tight and sore but not unrunnable as long as I don’t push too hard. I see some stretching and foam rolling in my future.

It worked out to be:

Run: Four runs, all on the road, for 25 miles in a bit longer than 4 hours.

As far as my title goes, I really didn’t eat THAT much junk food. I made some peach crisp with peaches my husband had picked hours earlier from trees he planted a couple of years ago. We may have ordered in barbecue on Saturday, I may have eaten a family-sized bag of potato chips over the course of the weekend, and I may have had some wine while watching the season finale of Game of Thrones last night.

It’s pouring rain now, but I am hopeful it clears out and I can go for another easy run to kick off the week. Here’s hoping I can squeeze in more than I did last week.