Monday: Rest day. Stella's cardiologist day. If you remember, my vet detected a pretty strong heart murmur in a routine exam for Stella a couple of months ago. He wasn't super concerned, but he wanted it looked at by a board certified cardiologist just in case. Stella has been on grain free foods most of her life thanks to Deuce's weird food allergies, and while the jury is still out about the link of DCM (dilated cardiomyopathy) and grain free foods, many of my friends are finding out bad news with their dogs. The process was very interesting, I got to stay for the whole exam to keep Stella happy and quiet, and in turn got to see the entire echo cardiogram procedure . Plus, it was the first day of students rotating to this specialty, so I got the full on education that they got. While I studied cattle and livestock in college, the biology is the same, so I learned SO much from the attending! In the end we got goodish/baddish news. She does not have DCM which is SUPER good. She does have a valve that is showing some degeneration, but they think it won't get any worse than it is now, so it isn't something to worry about. I left 500 dollars poorer, but so happy that it wasn't DCM and that we don't have to fight that long and scary battle with her. Also, they said the running is fine for her heart so keep up with it!
Tuesday: 5 easy miles plus strength. Plus popcorn day at school (we pop 440 bags of popcorn for the student and staff) and Andrew's Christmas program. Yeesh. Tis the season. I got my fiver done over my "lunch break" and then started the marathon that is get ready for Christmas program, oh and ah over cute kiddos singing and dancing, and the celebrating said program. Celebrating said program equaled a couple of beers, so bedtime happened closely after and strength did not. I will try and fit it in another day but no promises. It's an easy to get through work out, but challenging as well. Who would have thought holding your lower back into the floor worked SO many core muscles???
Wednesday: Speed work. I had to laugh because I was telling Rockin Robin that at least my new coach probably won't give me mile repeats because I HATE mile repeats. Uh, well, I was wrong, mile repeats for the win LOL! At least it was a short work out, I can do hard things for short amounts of time or at least that is what I told myself over and over. Ended up doing this one on the mill. I had five minutes of warm up and then did some warm up drills. Hopped back on and set the repeats for the speed in the conversion chart (6.1 mph plus 1% incline) and cranked up the rocking Christmas tunes on Pandora. I just told myself i could do hard things for 10 minutes of my life, especially when I got 2 minutes of slow walking in between each repeat AND there were only 3 total. I finished out with some Disney Pandora ( i am all about Disney songs post seeing Frozen 2). I finished up drenched in sweat and tired, but DONE and happy with the results. The only issue was my watch and the mill were NOT the same, so I just lapped every time I hit 9:45 on my watch and called it good. It's just SO weird that I have turned into someone who actually likes doing speedwork on the mill.
Thursday: Easy 6 plus strength. Ran post work not feeling great, but needing some time to decompress with Rockin Robin. Lots been going on in my life that i am not putting on here, maybe some day. Running partners are so invaluable. I have been blessed with having two in my life and I cherish each one of them. After 6 easy miles of running therapy, I felt cleansed and ready to get on with my life. Unfortunately, I also ate dinner and settled in to watch a documentary about showing cats (it was really funny) and just couldn't rouse myself to do strength. Oh well, sometimes you need to rest instead and I listened to my body and rested.
Friday: Rest day. Well, felt better so got one strength session done that I missed. Actually was alone at the office and even though I was in jeans, I just took my phones to the back of the shop, used a dog bed for my planks, and got it done.
Saturday: Long run day. 16 miles on the docket for the day. We had blue skies, a little bit of a north wind, and no snow....yet. My left hammy has been a little sore and it made it's presence known off and on during the run. I had intended on heading out and doing 10 and then dropping stella ella off and grabbing Boom for the final 6, but I decided to stay out and not get near the house. I had all of my fuel on me and had a nice full bottle of water on me, so didn't really need to stop. Afterwards it was a mad dash to get ready for a b-day party and fun in Manhattan.
Sunday: Shorter long run day. 70 minutes. We woke up to freezing cold temps and snow!!!! After some time on the computer and some coffee, I messaged rockin Robin to see if she wanted to get out for some snow fun. She is my kind of crazy so she said yes and we got bundled up and headed out.
We had yaktraxs on so we weren't having any issues with traction as long as we were on a good amount of snow. They hurt my feet as always unless the snow is deep, but I would rather wear them and not fall than have to run on the mill.
Stella had musher's secret on her feet and only had minimal issues with snow balling up. I kept her on lead the whole time because for some odd reason there was a ton of people on the roads.
When we got back I finally got around to decorating for Christmas. We kind of went to pick out a tree super late this year and there were about 5 trees left on the lot. We picked the above tree to give it a good warm home, plus our city recycles Christmas trees into wood chips for the city park, so she would always be close to us:) Since she was so short, Andrew got to do all of the decorating. I tried to keep my OCD at a minimum and not freak out about ornament placement (or clustering).
What a great week! I finally feel like I am back in the saddle and hoping this sore hammy goes away. I have been icing it and stretching like crazy and will alert my coach just in case we need to do something different. This is one thing that has never bothered me so hammy issues are super new to me. Any advice? Have a great week!!!!!
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