Wow, time is flying, which surprises me because usually it flies when I’m busy and having fun and have other good distractions, but these days it’s just the same day in and day out – same training, same working from home (well that was pretty much the same pre-covid as I only went in 1 day a week), no social interactions for the most part except with my family.  So with everything feeling like groundhog day, I guess I never thought we would get to August, but here we are.

We did take a family trip two weeks ago to South Haven, Michigan with my parents, my sister and her family, and it was so nice to get away. We rented a house, ate in every night and maintained social distance from others when out and about, so it was a pretty low risk trip and a welcomed change to do something different.  JMR played golf with my parents three days, my sister and brother in law rotated playing two of those days, and while they were golfing I ran 14 miles one day and the other two I rode 50ish mile routes up to Douglas, MI and back.  I also rode with JMR in the afternoons as we brought his never-before-ridden-outside road bike with us, and he finally rode it and LIKED it! Which I am glad because it was a tad stressful getting both of our bikes in the car since my bike rack had bit the dust a year ago.  After it bit the dust, since I only had my bike to transport, it easily fit in my car with our luggage with the front wheel off only so there was no need to buy a new one.  Two bikes…and golf clubs…different story.  See photo evidence below. (spoiler alert: JMR gave me the green light to buy a new bike rack as soon as we got home)

It was a little tense between JMR and I while trying to load them up, we had it down for the way home though.

We mostly rode on a crushed-limestone trail or a paved bike path, and took the pace easy, so I think that was a good way to ease him in.  We tried a road route one of the days and he was NOT a fan of the cars, so we will stick to bike paths when riding back at home for now.  I got in 213 miles of riding, 27 miles of running and a whopping 860 yards of swimming (I just wanted to go out and say I swam during the trip, the lake was very calm one day!), so it was a very active vacation for me!  I love ending the day eating extra dessert (cookies AND ice cream) and then going to bed and sleeping well from being so active during the day.

Since IMWI was cancelled the week before my tip, my vacation week was an unstructured training week (do whatever I felt like, except I needed to get in two specific runs), and then after I would switch training to more of a running focus since there are no more tri’s on the schedule for this year.  When we got back that Saturday, I had a 10 mile run to do and that Sunday I had another 10 mile run to start getting used to running on tired legs (more on that later).  Last week was the first official week of changing focus, cutting back on the Saturday long bike rides and replacing them with a long run on both Saturday and Sunday.  I’m also re-adding my Tuesday/Thursday strength training to make sure my glutes, quads and other muscles that need work stay strong and I avoid injuries!

The back to back ‘long runs’ this past weekend went ok, 12 miles on Saturday and 10 miles on Sunday, both on trails to lessen the impact on my legs/joints and hopefully prevent injury.  I am also getting used to running with a hydration vest that has two bottles in the front since my handheld doesn’t carry enough water for longer distances on trails, since I can’t refill it with water like I do when I run at nearby parks.  The longer mileage, running vest, trails… are all because I have some potential upcoming running ‘races’ I hope to do, but since these days it seems like you never know if a race will actually happen until you are actually racing it, I will just give a recap after the event if they are a go!

That is about all that is going on over here, I’ll leave you with a picture of the dogs staring me down at 5p yesterday… clearly it was time for dinner.

Hey! It’s time for dinner. Feed us!

Happy Tuesday!