Hello, everyone! How was your weekend?
This past week was slightly busier than usual! Possibly most demanding of Ryan’s and my time was that poor Charlie has an ear infection! He had a bad yeast infection in his ear during Easter, and now he has a combined yeast and bacterial infection. Poor guy had to go to the vet this week and is now taking both antibiotics and ear drops. We’ve been making sure he’s been getting rest and snuggles to feel better! Charlie was such a good boy at the vet and made his mommy and daddy so proud!
Since it’s dark and cold for all of the evenings here, we broke out the board games this week. Monday night we listened to Christmas music and played Scrabble. We braved the cold on Friday night to attend Holly Days, a local Christmas event in downtown Valpo. There was a live Nativity that included alpacas, which are just ridiculously cute. Alpacas somehow remind me of Charlie and I think Charlie would love one as a pet.
How pretty is downtown Valpo during the holidays? I love living here! There are cute shrubs shaped like dogs outside the courthouse and they were Santa hats for the holidays! How cute!
Saturday was a busy and fun day! In the morning I spectated at a local race. Extra Mile Fitness, the amazing running store here in Valparaiso, hosted a Championship 5K for runners that had won or placed in their age groups for various 5K races throughout the year. I don’t consider the 5K my strength by any means (it hurts to push so hard!), but it was inspiring to watch so many fast runners out there! It made me want to throw in a few workouts at 5K speed over the winter months so that maybe I can pound out a 22 minute 5K next spring!
Later Ryan and I volunteered at an oral history event at the Porter County Museum. We held our wedding reception there and since then we’ve been volunteering more and more for them. This event commemorated Pearl Harbor Day. Afterwards, we went to Saturday night Mass and then to a basketball game at our alma mater, Valparaiso University! The paid seats were sooooo much more comfortable than the bleachers we sat in as students (VU lets students attend games for free and has a bleacher section reserved for them). The game was a bit of a bummer, though, because we lost by quite a bit.
Since we went to church on Sunday night, we enjoyed a gloriously lazy Sunday.
Despite some less than pleasant winter weather, I got in a some great runs this week:
Monday: Inclement weather kept me on the treadmill. I did a workout I found in an older issue of Runner’s World: 3 x 400 meters at 10K pace (7:40/mile for me), 3 x 400m at 5K pace (7:24/mile), and 3 x 400m at mile pace (6:49/mile). I covered a total of 7 miles in 59 minutes and followed it up with 15 minutes of Pilates.
Tuesday: 5 miles outside with some rolling hills in 42 minutes (8:35/mile average) plus 4 strides.
Wednesday: 4 miles outside on a hilly loop at an average pace of 9:04/mile. I took it easy because there were small patches of frost and slick spots on the ground. Afterwards I did 20 minutes of strength training. In the evening I did a 2 mile easy run on the same hilly loop with Ryan.
Thursday: 2 miles easy with Ryan before work and 20 minutes of core-focused yoga in the afternoon.
Friday: 10 miles on the treadmill with 6 x 5 minutes at goal half marathon pace (7:53/mile), 5 minutes easy (8:57/mile).
30 miles total this week!
Questions of the Day:
How was your weekend?
Do you do speed work when you’re not training for a specific race?
1 Response
My fiance and I went to the tree lighting event on campus! Very cold outside, but lots of fun! I was hoping to go to Holly Days but it was a very emotionally tiring week, so I decided to stay in and relax some. The alpacas look cute!