Running in Wyoming

Last week I went back to visit my Grandparents in Burlington Wyoming. This year I was particularly nervous about it because it was going to be just Me(Jen), my Mom and my 6 year old son Peter. Normally there is a slew of us going out there to all spend time together as a family. I was nervous because I wasn't quite sure how I was going to entertain Peter for 4 whole days with no other kids his age anywhere around.

He says his favorite thing we did was the Fireworks!

Don't get me wrong. Wyoming is some beautiful country with lots to do, but when you have an extremely high energy child who completes more in a day then most families of 5 it is easy to run out of new ideas for spending time.

So anywhoo, we went and surprisingly had more then enough to do. Never felt bored once and enjoyed every minute of it!

I also ended up achieving a small running goal while I was there. Being that I run with a club I rarely ever run alone. I was actually kind of scared to. I have felt that at times I do depend on my running pals too much!

So I challenged myself this week to just get out the door and run. Not have a plan, or definite miles or pace in mind. I just wanted to get out the door, see how it feels and run from there...alone.
I am happy to report, I did it!

here is my weekly mileage breakdown:

Wednesday: 5.5 Miles

Thursday: 4 Miles

Friday: off

Saturday: 10 Miles! (I can not remember the last time I ran 10 alone)

The miles the first 2 days we are an easy pace. Saturday, I started and felt strong so turned it into a moderate tempo with a massive hill climb in the middle. and then let myself relax and feel good at the turn around point and enjoy the rest of the way home easy.

The top of that mountain is where I turned around and headed back. I was so proud of myself I made my mom drive me out there to take a pic! If you look closely in the background you can see some green grass. I started my 10 miler down there.

Who knew, I can run on my own! I seriously thought I had almost forgotten how.

Beautiful Rainbow outside my Grandparents Back door!

Do any of you dread running alone?
Who has bought their Attica running skirt? I love my custom green and purple one =)

-Jen

Get ready for a GIVEAWAY =)

Yep, stay tuned, we have a giveaway coming soon.  I'll give you a hint, you will be able to enjoy it using more then one of your 5 senses.....AND there will be more then 1 item.

To start, I'll say my 5k time trial went well. We do this same airport loop every so often to see how how we are doing and I beat my time by almost a minute. So that is good! Also, this loop is tough, you do get to fly downhill for the first 1.5 miles but then for the rest of it you first climb a steep uphill followed by a gradual uphill back to the finish.  It is tricky but doable.  I am just surprised I didn't stop because the thought did enter my mind about 20 times..... so that is like once almost every minute. lovely.

Onto this week,

Monday: Bike 20 miles
Tuesday: 3x1600m Repeats with 1 MINUTE RECOVERY..... who does a VO2 max session and only get 1 minute recovery???  Especially on a 1 mile repeat.  I am hoping to hit this 1 mile repeat around 6:56 or so.  who knows.. i'll let you know. I also need to do a strength training session this day.

Wednesday: Swim and or Bike ride. haven't decided yet.
Thursday: 13 miles @ 8:45 pace plus Strength of some sort.
Friday: Total Conditioning

I am having issues fitting in strength. Why does it seem so annoying to lift weights.  It seems so time consuming and soooo boring.   But, I realize it needs to be done. This week I will lift at least 3 times!  It doesn't need to be intense, but it does need to happen.

On another subject, I clean out my closet each fall and spring.  Clutter drives me crazy and for some reason a good cleaning out each 6 months or so seems to lift my moral a ton.  When going through my clothes this time I realized my regular clothing wardrobe is totally slacking and my workout wardrobe is becoming ginormous and out of control.

This pile of the "junk" workout clothing was all crammed into 1 drawer.... lovely.

Plus, does anyone else find it odd that I am more worried about my "good" workout clothes being kept hung up and not getting wrinkly then my other clothes.  

So I refolded all my crappy workout clothes (the ones in the pile) and decided to make a conscious effort to try and make do with what I have got and focus on my normal clothes for a bit....we'll see how that goes.

This picture below is just a random pic I took of my son Peter going out and chasing a cow during the rodeo we went to. I dunno why but it made me thing of the part in the book "Born to Run" where the kids learn to run by playing games.... do we Americans teach our children to run in cow manure during fun events like Rodeos...I dunno, the thought just came to me.

Does anyone else clean out there closet?
-I love cleaning mine out. A good friend of mine once taught me that if you haven't worn it in 1 year, get rid of it. I agree.  

Has anyone else chased a cow at a rodeo?
I have, I participated in this same event that Peter did when I was younger. Crazy how some things just don't change.

Who else has a hard time with Strength Training?
I know some of you do, I have read about it on your blogs. Anyone come up with a good solutions??

Happy Running! -Jen