Monday: Rest day. Backstory time. I had boarded the dogs at our local vet clinic. Apparently Stella and Deuce who were in a pen together got out. Stella looked like she had eaten an entire bag of cat food when I picked her up, but they assured me she had not. I am not kidding, she waddled when she walked. They were nervously laughing about it and it is SO Stella to escape. Between my kid's separation anxiety and her separation anxiety I have much anxiety. They all came home and put themselves in the bed. I am not joking at all. I came home to check on them at one point and they were all so dead asleep that i got in the house and back out before they realized I had been there. Boarding must really, really stress my poor dogs out!
Tuesday: 8 miles. This is where the going gets tough. Yes, I have a treadmill in my house and a gym membership that also has treadmills, but I want to be outside. My race is outside so I need to train outside as much as possible. The good news was I hadn't seen my running partner since last Friday (although like all of my running partners we talk a million times a day via messenger), so we talked incessantly the entire run. I didn't take any pictures but got the above when I got home. It's already WAY too hot to take the dogs, even at 4 am :(
Wednesday: 8 miles. Again, feels like 87 at 4 am. Sigh. Storms to the north of us that didn't look like they would be through till 7:30. Met Robin at 5:00 am to get started and was greeted with high winds and sprinkles. We decided to stay close just in case and check our radar for lightning constantly. We also decided to split our mileage up a little and do 6 on Wednesday and add 2 miles to our 4 the next day. It's just too ridiculously hot to push it, even at 4 and 5 am. We got our 6 and only had a little bit of rain to deal with.
I want to pause a minute to say a HUGE happy birthday to my running partner Robin! Robin started out my running journey with me post Andrew and trained for my first half with me (she was training for her first trail 25K). We have run several races together and we are both running the Hawk with her running the full and me running the 50. She is also always there for me when I need a sympathetic/empathetic ear and is my coaching buddy for Girls on the Run. I love her and I am glad we celebrated with a nice long run :)
Thursday: 8 miles. The name of the game is watch the radar. Got up to a storm south of us producing some good lightning. Decided to go back to bed and wait an hour to see if it would move on. Woke up the exact same radar picture. Huh? It was like the storm had just parked itself on top of poor Alma and wasn't moving at all. It had a ton of lightning so again, went back to bed to wait an hour. Rinse and repeat x 2. Finally got up around 7 ish and had breakfast. Since my parents are here for the 4th and my boss is my hubby :) decided to be late for work and see what we could get. It was still hot and humid, but it was overcast with a breeze, which meant we could get at least 6.
Much post running, Tony and I headed into Manhattan for some yummy fine dining. We have this place called Harry's in this old historic building that has been our go to for years for celebrations. They announced after many many years they were closing their doors due to the financial burden the virus had put on them. We had over 200 bucks in gift cards, so I quickly made reservations when I heard they were closing. I am so sad to see it go, as it truly was an icon in Manhattan but not a place we could afford on a regular basis. Above is a picture of Bulldog Oatmeal Stout they had on tap, and is one of the best stouts I have ever had!!!
Their appetizers are legendary. Our favorite is the goat's cheese and bruschetta plate. It's a meal in itself.
We normally get prime rib, but they weren't severing it that night, so we had filet mignon instead. It was like cutting butter. SO flavorful and tender!
And of course we had to have dessert. I had some sort of chocolate and vanilla cake while Tony had some coconut cheesecake. Both were heavenly.
I so hope someone buys the place and keeps it around. It truly is an icon and a legend in our community.
Friday: 10 miles. I was hoping we wouldn't have storms again. I woke up to storms on the radar, but no lightning. We decided to try and get what we could before the storms hit and watched storm after storm go around us. The temps stayed manageable and the humidity wasn't horrible, so Stella got to go and stay with me. We did stop a few times to water her, but she handled it well. Normally Friday would be a rest day, but I wanted to enjoy the 4th and stay up for fireworks, so switched my days around.
Saturday: 22 miles. We had played around with getting up at 3:30 am to get on the road by 4:30 am so we would have at least 30 more minutes of sun free fun. It appeared according to the free weather app that I had on my phone that the temps would actually be lower the later we waited and it was suppose to be cloudy. Well, it lied big time. The humidity was at 97%, so oppressive is a great word. We did 10 miles as an out and back and got back to the house to refill bottles with some ice cold water, drink some coke for me, and to get more fuel. We went back out for another 10 mile out and back, but on the way back there was an airplane on the run way so we couldn't do our little loop, and then we both ran out of water so we had to head back to the house no matter what. When we got back to the house, both of us were super done but we didn't want to give up.
More coke, more ice cold water, some Popsicles and boob ice got us back going to try and finish up. I don't love running up and down our streets, but they are tree lined and are quite shaded during the day for the most part. We ended up visiting our favorite BBQ place for some more boob ice and finally finished. My knee started hurting about 7 miles out and continued on and off till we finished. It felt like that bone needed to be popped on the outside of my leg. I have a chiro appointment for the upcoming week, thank goodness. I am hoping that 5 days straight of running is the only culprit and I can take a couple of days off and it will get better.
Post running and clean up we hung out, ate food, and shot off fireworks. Here are some of my favorite. I am a huge lover of pretty fireworks not loud fireworks. I loved the train, the tank, and the fire hydrant.
Sunday: OFF. Slept till 9 am. LOVED IT! Last day with my parents. Clean up day from all of the fireworks. We may not have had our normal huge community fireworks show that we all love, but we ate BBQ from our local BBQ joint, lit fireworks all night, and just hung out as a family. That I love more than anything.
Have a great week! Another big mileage week for me so pray my body holds together.
No comments:
Post a Comment