Week 2 of 18 Flint HIlls 50 and Trail Marathon Training

Before I get started, I wanted to tell everyone that the two big ambassador programs I tried to get in were both a bust. I am really bummed, especially about the second one, because I really, really care about their brand and would be a good match for their program.  The program did have non paid travel, but I was willing to travel to at least one race that was 6 hours away.  Unfortunately, that was the only race I could have made or would commit to the expense of, so that may have been a big deciding factor.  Oh well, I will try again next year and see what happens!

I am SO glad Christmas fell on a rest day, so I didn't have to juggle my schedule around.  Here are a pics from our Coleman Christmas.

I am one of those people who always feel like I didn't get my kid enough and then I totally over do it.  I tried this year to limit what Santa brought and have more stuff from us instead.  I am a work in progress, but getting better.  Santa brought a Thomas super station.  All of the trains in and on the station are his that he already had.  I had an amazing time organizing every single train he owns, and i think I seriously love this thing, more for the storage capacity than the actual toy.  And no, I have NO clue where we are going to put it.  

My child also loves all things 80s including the Ghost busters, so we got him the Ghost Buster's fire house and the Ghost buster's Ecto one.  Lucky for me, both were on HUGE sale on Amazon's black friday sales.  

If you saw my instagram feed, you saw that my hubby hadn't really bought me anything.  We weren't going to do presents, as we are going to have to buy and install a new furnace/AC outside unit for the house, but i had gotten my hubby a few inexpensive things (read a shirt and a 5 dollar stress relief game) and he decided he NEEDED to get me something.  Well, I always need more running socks, so running socks it is!  I have also always wanted a pair of goodr glasses, so why not at Christmas!  The socks were on sale at our local running specialty store, buy three and get one free, so I added a pair of Christmas socks to go with my thanksgiving socks that i got for my birthday.  I am so ready next year to jingle bell run and turkey trot!

Tuesday:  3, 2, 1 speed work ladder.  Same as last week's effort, but this time on the dreadmill.  We have had two dustings of snow, which equals super slick road surfaces due to thaw and freeze.  I just don't trust the surface when it gets that way since we have to traverse black top to get to our gravel.  Plus, I didn't really want to get up at 4 am since I have the week off.  We had had a rough night anyway, as daddy had come down with a nasty virus Christmas day, (maybe the same one as andrew minus the puking) and had tossed and turned and talked all night long.  Plus, the house was super cold for some reason, and I was just wide awake most of the night.  No big deal, I can dreadmill any time of the day.  It's weird how now I almost want to do speed work on the mill, versus just straight out miles on the mill?  I LOVE the fact that I can use my Garmin 235 indoors too for timed work like this!  Although, I am kind of doubting the accuracy of it all.  I know that my treadmill isn't that accurate either, but for the paces (mph + incline) I was using and the amount of effort that I was putting forth, the numbers didn't match up.  For instance, for the 1 minute interval in which I try and go all out, I was running 7 mph with a 1 % incline, which should equal a 8:32 pace, but my watch called it as an 9:52 once, an 8:41 once, and an 8:43 once.  Hmmmmm.  I was going 7 mph for all three 1 minute intervals, so go figure.  I also had a big discrepancy in the mileage.  My watch said 5.1 miles and my treadmill said 5.6.  Very weird.

Wednesday:  Strength.   I had two work outs lined up for us to do.  What happened?  The Christmas PURGE!  I need to reorganize Andrew's rooms, so I could fit the new toys in.  A little note, Andrew's room historically has been a storage room for us, since we don't have an attic or finished basement.  Over the years, we have slowly tried to purge or reorganize and get rid of stuff stored in there, but it has been a long process.  I still had quite a bit of baby stuff stored in there that I had forgotten about and I wanted to get all of that out and donated locally.  Andrew and I spent most of the day going through baby stuff and toys he no longer played with and donated a huge chunk of what was in his room.  I took a load that filled my entire van to Goodwill and felt SO proud of Andrew for making some super tough decisions.  We also packaged up a lot of toys that he wasn't really ready to get rid of, but that he really didn't play with anymore, so some day soon, some train crazy kid will get some awesome trains......someday.

This is half of the pile that went!

Post donating, the hubs and I headed over to Target to get some new storage stuff for Christmas decorations.  In getting a new furnace, we are going to loose our entire closet under the stairs to duct work, so I needed to down size Christmas stuff as well.  In the process of driving over to the big T, we witnessed a wreck.  After I pulled over, the hubs got out to make sure everyone was okay and tried to clear debris from the road.  Well, lucky us, we must have driven through some before he did his cleaning job, because post target shopping, we had a flat tire.

Lucky for me, the hubby got the flat off and the spare on, but the spare was in pretty bad shape.  We limped the car to the nearest gas station, and my hubby man handled the spare (which at that point was not attached to the rim anymore), and got it to attach back to the rim and inflate.  We were then able to drive to the only place open that did tires AKA Wallyworld to buy a new tire, since the old one was not replaceable.  We don't go to Wallyworld very often, so it was kind of fun to walk the toy aisles and see all the sales, and BONUS, our Wallyworld had a subway so we could eat as well.  I kept telling myself Andrew didn't need anything, since we just had donated a ton of stuff.  Why am I always drawn to little cheap crap that he plays with for a day and then stores never to be played with again?????

Thursday: 5 miles easy.   Okay, so the purge monster hit again, but for a good reason.  As I said earlier, we have a closet under our stairs where the new duct work for the new furnace we are getting is going in.  This is where I store 100% of my Christmas stuff including my artificial tree.  I am going to loose all of that storage area, so I had to condense and get rid of a bunch of stuff.  Lucky for me, last year, Andrew broke a ton of our ornaments putting them on the tree, so we had already lost a bunch of ornaments.

This year we were using all shatterproof ornaments, and they fit perfectly in one of those ornament organizers.  In fact I got all of our Christmas decorations in two Tupperware, one box, and three light bags.  The rest is going to Good Will next time we wander to Manhattan.  I would love to do way more decorating for Christmas, but we just don't have the storage for it.  I guess we will stick to lights and door cling decorations for now.

Post purging, I headed to the mill to pound out 5 miles.  Again, my watch and the mill were off, and I was going to go with what the mill said, since I was set on 5.2 mph, but my OCD got the best of me, and I had to finish up and make the watch happy.  It was about 6 more minutes of running to get it to 5, which isn't that bad in the grand scheme of things.

Friday:  Cross and Strength.  Nada.  Nothing.  More purging and resting.  Lots of resting.  Not going to feel guilty.  What I will share here is yet another freezer meal dish that I am super in love with!

Loaded sweet potato fries are amazing!  I didn't think that this would fill me up with no meat involved, but the protein in the beans did a great job!  We were both skeptical that this dish would be good, but it was better than good!  I really am enjoying helping out by doing some "cooking" around the house.  We have several dishes from both rounds of freezer meal classes that we like to make now, so they are well worth the price!

Saturday:  Long run.  When I got up, it was feels like -7 with a north wind of 10 miles per hour.  Yipeee.  NOT.  I managed to put on about 7 layers and head out with both dogs with the hubby having his phone in his pocket just in case we turned to icicles and needed a ride.  

I will have to say that I was pretty warm, and other than the discomfort of running into the tough wind and my eyelashes freezing together.  If I put my buff on and cover my eyes and mouth, it fogs up my glasses and the condensation freezes to my eyelashes.  If anyone has a cure or that, let me know!  I didn't take any pictures during my run because I was worried about my phone dying, plus I had two layers of gloves on and didn't want to take them off as it was a bitch to get them on in the first place.

Post running, we headed to the movies for a late lunch and some Star Wars.  WOW, Star Wars was amazing!  I don't want to type spoilers, but Ben, Finn, and Rhea love triangle anyone?

Andrew had some parts that didn't interest him, and thus we had some moving around and some talking, but the action parts kept him GLUED to the screen.  We some how accidentally got tickets to the 3D version, but the 3D version was in the eat in theater, and I will take that theater any day over the others.  

Sunday:  5 miles.  Back to the mill I headed.  Feels like -8, no thank you.  We had gotten out earlier and just that little adventure left me hating the cold.    I was suppose to do strides but instead put on Netflix and Mindhunter and did .9 of a mile running and .1 of a mile walking.  Then we started partying hard and I mean partying hard by getting in our pjs, bundling up in blankets, and watching Dick Clark's Rocking New Years Eve on the telly.  We had Mocktails at New York's midnight and little man crashed and we limped it to the real midnight and then promptly went to bed.  Such party animals are we!!!!

Have a wonderful New Year!!!!  I hope you had a safe and fun New Years Eve and are eating your greens and pork on New Years for good luck!  I know this southern household stuck on the prairie will be!  See you next year!!