Weekly Wrap-Up: June 26-July 2

I had a really great trip. It was for a family reunion. I have some amazing Cousins. (Everybody’s considered a Cousin, whether they’re a first cousin, second cousin, or whatever. Even if you marry into the family, like my Mom, you’re a Cousin, too.) One of my Cousins is an ultramarathoner. I should have known I wouldn’t be the only runner. But really, they’re just great people, and I feel lucky to be a Cousin.

So I ran in Connecticut for the first time. That’s the 7th state I’ve run in. The current list, in chronological order, is North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Oregon, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. I noticed over the weekend a bunch of people on Facebook started posting these maps of all the states they’ve visited. My states visited map has a few more states – 25, plus D.C. – but apparently there’s 18 states that I’ve visited but haven’t run in. Yet.

And lost in all of this, Sunday was the 6 year anniversary of my first run. That means that it was also 1 year since I started this blog. I’ll say this, I think I’m in a much better place as a runner today than I was a year ago, even if I can’t really credit the blog for my improvement.

Weight Check: I decided to write this up Monday afternoon, so I haven’t done a weigh in since Thursday, June 29, so that’s going to be my official weigh in, and it’s 167.5 pounds, down 1.2 from last week. I don’t really remember how I ate before I left. (I know it was really bad while I was gone, though.) It’s still higher than I’d like. Hopefully by next Sunday I’ll be able to cancel out all the damage from my trip.

This Week’s Runs
Day Scheduled Total Miles
Monday 6 miles easy 6.01
Tuesday 5 miles easy 5.01
Wednesday Fartlek, 20 minute warm up, 4 x 4 minutes hard with 2 minutes easy in between, 15 minute cool down (until I reach 6 miles) 6.01
Saturday 5 miles easy 5.01
Sunday 3 miles easy 3.01

Total: 25.05 miles

8.02 miles in Connecticut. That puts it ahead of New Jersey (only one non-treadmill mile) but sadly, still behind my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad 10.21 mile run in Ohio.

On Monday, the weather was much, much better than the previous week. My legs were a little tired, though. (Maybe they were tired during the previous week and I didn’t notice because of the heat.) I kept the effort easy, although I pushed it a little for the last quarter mile or so.

Tuesday, the weather was still pretty nice. My legs felt OK. I kept an easy effort most of the way, and again pushed a little on the last quarter mile.

On Wednesday, I did a fartlek workout, and could not have asked for better weather for late June. 60 degrees, still a little bit of humidity, but not nearly as bad as it’s been. That certainly helped. My legs felt OK for the most part, just a little tired near the end, which is understandable.

It was really weird not running for 2 days when my legs were healthy and not recovering from a marathon. I could have squeezed in a run Thursday morning, but I followed my coach’s plan.

Saturday I ran for the first time in Connecticut. There were some rolling hills, but at least the scenery was kind of cool. The weather was a little more hot and humid than I’d like (and certainly worse than earlier in the week), but it wasn’t terrible. I did all right, I guess, and my car key was safely stored 500 or so miles away, so there’s that.

(Edit to add: I forgot to put in my post-Connecticut run picture, so here you go. You can see both my bright blue shoes and some of the flowers they planted outside of my hotel.)

Finally, on Sunday, I didn’t even realize it until I started writing this up, but I stopped at 3 miles. I can’t believe it. I almost always turn scheduled 3 mile runs into 5Ks. I guess all the traveling got to my brain. Anyway, it was a decent run, although my legs were a little bit tired, since I had been standing around a lot talking to people at my family reunion on Saturday. (I still had a great time there, though.)

Next week, I’m not going anywhere, but I’m on call this coming weekend, so I’m going to celebrate America’s birthday with a 12 mile long run. I’ve also got a fartlek workout scheduled for later in the week. And we’re in a new month, so I need to write a wrap-up for June.