The In Between: Week 6

I am so in the spirit of Christmas this year!  I think it is because little red is so DANG excited about EVERYTHING!  We have to go driving around every night and look at lights (and no he doesn't have to twist my arm).  I love the fact that our little town really does it up right for the holidays, and that practically every house has some sort of lights. I guess we need to get into the spirit and decorate as well!  We finally got a real tree this year and it looks amazing!  We let little red decorate some of it and I had to laugh at his ornament placement.

While real trees are kind of pricey, we bought ours at a local lot that benefits local kid's programs.  Made me feel kind of warm and fuzzy that the money is going to a good cause.  I am happy to say that I got the bulk of the "santa" shopping done online.  My mom caught a buy one get one half price sale online, so I got both of andrew's big items at a much discounted rate and they are being shipped to my door.  Whew.  That was way to easy and nice!  Still need to get some smaller stuff for stockings and wrapping, but this may have been the easiest shopping ever!

Monday:  Rest day.  Resting up for a long week of wrestling, running, and possibly snow:)

Tuesday:  5-6 miles.  We went with 5 miles.  Dang it was cold!!!!  The north wind was about 10 mph, dropping the temp down to 20 F.  That still isn't too cold, but I didn't cover my ears because I missed the memo about the wind.  Glad i had my buff for my neck and face on, but it doesn't cover my ears.  Lesson learned, look at the dang wind speed before you head out!  I guess it did make me run a little faster!

Wednesday:  Wrestling practice and McDonalds.  Yes.  I suck.  After our wonderful dinner, we drove around our cute little town and looked at lights.

This is just a small part of our little park.  It is completely decorated from one side to the other.  I can't wait till it snows, as it makes these lights look even more awesome!  There a lot of people in our town that also have quite the disposable income judging on the amount of money they spend on their lighting displays.  Oh well, makes it fun to drive around at night and look at them!

Thursday:  6 miles planned.  Oh boy.  Our first super cold run of the season.

Wind was WNW at 10 mph, and it kicked our butts.  I wished I had worn my full face mask, not just my buff.  We had to walk a few times because the wind was just too much.  I was warm all but my hands.  I really need to invest in some toasty gloves or try double gloving.  Maybe santa will bring me a case of those little hand warmers.  As I am typing this, I am on my second cup of coffee, not because i wanted more coffee, but because my hands won't thaw and it has been over an hour since I have gotten back from running.  BRRRRR!

from arrow coffee.  Peppermint hopped mocha.

Friday:  Yeah.  Not going there.  I did look at some apps for spin classes, so I can at least do

something on my bike on my trainer.  I suck.  It was a friday night and I think I was in bed by 8:30.  

We did some coloring though.  This is what every night pretty much looks like, and i love it.  Well, minus the nakedness.  I tend to color fully clothed:)

Saturday:  11 miles planned.  

11 cold miles.  Well, i was pretty warm actually.  I misread the weather channel app, and thought it said 14 mph wind.  I double gloved, wore a full head/face mask, my mizuno breath thermo base layers with my wind jacket from Brooks over it all, and my UD pack.  I even put a running skirt over my tights.  Turns out, it was a south/east wind that was about 4 mph, whoops,  with a real feel of 20, I think.  I was pleasantly comfortable and did not sweat, even without the wind.  I am now excited to try this combo of clothing when it is much colder and or we have wind.   We had to make a couple of bathroom stops, one for melly and one for me.  This came up on my timehop when I got back home and on FB and I had to laugh:

Melly ended up having to head for home, hers was bothering her so much.  I plugged on.  Cool things on the run today:  A hawk that followed us for about a mile and called out (is that what you call their screech?).  Not cool things that happened on the run:  Found a head from some sort of animal.  It looked like it had been torn from it's owner.  I had to keep deuce away from it.  My phone also died at mile 3, so not a ton of Christmas music to listen to.  I also had a person stop in their truck and tell me that a possible rabid dog was loose.  Great.  No phone and no clue exactly where it was.  Never saw it thank goodness, but still.  Lost melly around mile 5:( .  

Overall it was a nice run, as I start seeing some high 10s on my watch, and I felt GREAT!  I try not to look at my watch when I am doing easy runs, but honestly, I have been glancing, and I have been seeing high 11s and low 12s.  While this isn't horrible (my marathon pace is and has always been around 10:30), I was a little disappointed that I was slowing down even more.  I figured it was the miles that I had been putting on my body adding up.  I am hoping that this is a sign that my body is finally recovered from all of my summer and fall fun!

Sunday:  45 minutes of walking or running.  My coach always gives me the option during the in between of recovery walks. I usually scoff at the word walk and run anyway, with some walk breaks inserted in.  Sunday was a day that I just had a thousand things going on and fitting a run in was going to be hard.  I slept in (till 9 WOW), I took Melly's kiddos to the lab to teach them about science, I did some house work, we visited the Festival of Lights in our little town and we ate food truck food.  By the time I was ready to run, it was 7:30 pm, and all I wanted to do was go to bed.  I managed to eek out 45 minutes on the treadmill while andrew colored.  

22 miles run and 2.8 miles walked.  Getting ever so close to Christmas!  Also getting close to official training (I think).  Still thinking about goals.  Do I want a better marathon time?  Do I want a better 50 K time?  What is my goal race?  Still thinking.  I kind of like just running and not worrying so much about hitting certain paces and doing speed work, but I know my body likes it when we do different things.  Decisions.  Have a great week!!!!