It was a busy weekend, and now back to work!  Although It feels like it’s been nonstop and I haven’t gotten a break.  Thank goodness I have NOTHING planned other than a run and yoga next weekend.

Now to recap where I last left off on my blog… Last Thursday morning I woke up early (early for me, 5:30a) and my tri-buddy picked me up to go running in Tilles Park.  He knew we weren’t going to run terribly far and it would be a combination of walk/running because my hip isn’t 100% yet, but I was glad he suggested we go to try to start getting into a morning workout routine.  Well, I’m glad I got up, but I can’t say I’m glad that I ran!  It was pitch dark out (the park is not lit at all, thank goodness he had a headlamp and I brought my flashlight) freezing cold!  Walking breaks were miserable because once you got warm from running, it brought our heart rates back down and we weren’t putting out much body heat.  It was awful!!  I ended up running more than I had planned because it was just too darn cold to walk!  Once we finished our 2.7 miles, I was so happy to be getting back into the car to head back home.  In retrospect I was really under dressed, so that was probably part to blame – if I had warmer gloves and more layers it might have been more enjoyable.  When I got to work I was happy that my workout was done for the day, but I think if I become (which I’ve been trying for the past couple of years to be) a morning work out person, it will be at the gym until it gets warmer out!!

Friday I got up early and went to PT (early, up at 5:30, in the clinic by 6:30a) but the hips are starting to feeling better and better, so it must be working!  I layed low Friday night, staying in and just watched a lifetime movie.  JMR was out-of-town with a buddy for a basketball game, so the plan was to lay low most of the weekend, but that didn’t happen.  I ended up getting up at 7a on Saturday to head to the gym to run/walk 3 miles, and then to my sister’s to babysit while she did her first yoga class.  After that I ran some errands, did some laundry and cleaning and then met my friend and her husband at 4p for yoga.  It was tough!  I thought that since I’ve been doing more core work in PT that I would be stronger, but I thought wrong.  Boy was I wobbly!

After yoga we went to grab coffee to discuss items we still needed to take care of for our tri club’s annual 5k and 10k race, since we are the tri club volunteer coordinators this year.  So far we have almost 30 volunteers, hooray!  It only took a little over and hour to go through and get done what was needed, but we stayed for another hour or so chatting and catching up since the last time we met up was before the holidays.

Then I went home to make stir-fry using the new Wok that my sister gave me for xmas!  The stir-fry turned out great and I even had leftovers for the next day.

Sunday I woke up and decided to test out the hip and do some spinning, so I went over to my favorite spin place, Saint Louis Spinning, and did the 9:30a class.  I hadn’t taken this instructors class before so I was a bit worried based on past experiences, but she turned out to be great and her music was pretty good too.  The only thing that wasn’t good was me!  I was so out of shape that my heart rate flew up to 150 just when I was starting out.  I kept the resistance pretty low the entire time to make sure that I wouldn’t irritate my hip, but it was still a good workout for me since I’m out of shape!  After that I ran home to do more cleaning, put my xmas decorations away and plan a grocery list for meals for the entire week.  I’ve slowly gotten better and better about cooking all of my meals and so now I’m trying to be more organized and not run to the store every other day.  After some planning I was off to the store!  I also picked up the ingredients for dinner that night since I was cooking dinner for JMR.  On the menu was hamburgers (no bun for me) and sweet potato fries with some veggies.

Fast forward to yesterday evening, I was off to a good start on the sweet potato fries, so far they looked good!

I put them in the oven and then went to make the hamburgers.  The instructions for the recipe I found online said to cook on each side 3-5 minutes on high heat.  Within only a couple of minutes of them being in the pan, I smelled smoke and looked over and saw smoke coming from the burgers!  Oh no!  I quickly flipped them over hoping that they could be salvaged but they were pretty burnt.

Yeah, you’re probably wondering why I was taking this picture and not saving the burgers. I’m wondering the same thing now too. Poor burgers.

I turned the heat down and was able to cook them to about medium before I had to take them off in fear of them turning into complete char, but there was still a lot of smoke even on the lower setting.  Also, when I took the sweet potatoes out they had more of a steamed-like texture than a crispy baked one.  Bummer.  As an additional bonus, my house now smelled like burnt hamburgers (my coat actually still does have a hint of hamburger smell to it, ick), I had to leave my porch door open for almost an hour for the smoke and smell to dissipate.

This morning I got up at 5:30a and went to PT, I had an early meeting at work so I wasn’t able to have her stretch me and do Astym (a technique that is supposed to help generate new healthy tissue and remove unwanted scar tissue, it’s pretty painful!) , but it’s better than not doing anything at all!

Back to work for me, I have a run planned on the treadmill tonight, but might have to ride my trainer instead and move it to tomorrow morning if the gym is too crowded.  This time of year and the gym is not a good combination, especially in the evenings!  Wish me luck!