22 mile run + last weeks workout schedule

I have been slacking on putting up the last few weeks of my training. After my run rest, where I switched my long runs from Saturdays to Wednesdays, I have done an 18 mile run and a 20 mile run. The 18 miler was pretty bad - I walked ALOT, it took me way longer than I wanted and I felt awful afterwards. I mean, it felt like I was coming down with the flu, I had a headache and my body was achey, but I spent the rest of the day that day at my moms in the pool before heading in to work - which seemed to cure most of my ailments. :) The following week I ran a 20 miler and felt 100x better... didn't have to walk at all and better managed my fluid intake - I felt so good that I wished the race was happening right then and I could just run 6 more miles and be done with it! Thankfully this week's 22 miler was just as nice!

Here's what my work out weeks been looking like:

Saturday 9/21 - P90x legs and back
Sunday - 3 mile run with Piper
Monday - ACL Class (My final class, so I'm going to need another form of exercise on Mon/Wed)
Tuesday - Rest and body prep for the long run. This includes some stretching, rolling out the tight muscle with "The Stick", and some carb loading. My routine carb load dinner is 2 slices of cheese pizza from Papa Johns and 2-3 bread sticks! I'm hoping I can find a Papa Johns pretty easily in DC the night before the race. ; )

Source - No afilliation

Wednesday - 22 Mile Run! I ran a 10 mile loop, stopped at the house to quickly use the bathroom and grab some Gu Chomps, ran another 10 mile loop, then stopped to get little miss Piper for the last 2 miles. That probably wasn't the best idea seeing as she had way more energy at that point than I did, haha, but she made sure I ran those last 2 miles with all I had left. Afterwards I was sore and achey, but just the legs, so I was super happy. Unfortunately I had mad blisters on my toes, they are still hurting today, but other than that I felt great!

That was the last of my LONG runs. With a month left until the race, I am going to start tapering... I've never really truly tapered before a race before so I'm a little nervous that I'll lose some momentum, but I don't really have a choice as I'm having surgery tomorrow morning to remove an endometrioma on my left ovary. The recovery time should be quick, but it will still require some rest from the longer runs. I am supposed to run a half marathon with a friend a week from today, but will be walking it instead due to the surgery. Oh well, at least I will still be getting my miles in!

Thursday - Core workout from Pinterest. I usually take it easy on the days after my long runs.

Source

Friday - Rested - oops. Definitely should've done an arm workout or something! I'm a slacker...

Saturday - 1 mile run with Piper. 

Tomorrow is surgery day so this week will be a very slow workout week for me as I recover, but like I said this time next week I'll be walk/running 13.1 miles so hopefully the recovery will be without any complications! 

  

"Hey pretty girl lets build some dreams..."

"And a house on a piece of land, we'll plant some roots and some apple trees. Hey pretty girl lets build some dreams..."

Man, I'm loving this song right now by Kip Moore! Especially this line because I feel like it perfectly describes the season of life Mark and I are in - the season of building dreams and planting roots. And actually, it described us literally last week in terms of planting roots, not the apple tree kind of roots but some tree roots none the less!

In my last post I talked about how Mark and I went shopping for trees for our backyard and last weekend we went and brought home 9 pretty trees to line our back fence. We spent what was probably the last warm Saturday of the season cleaning up the backyard and planting trees with the help of my dad and brother.

This is the fence that runs along our back yard. Our yard is more long than deep so we had a good expanse to fill in to help give us some privacy. The trees in the picture below are our baby "Dahoons"... they got dropped off first that morning...

I love my baby Dahoons.

Mark and my dad worked hard all morning to dig the holes...

 They even re-dug two holes at my request because the trees were lining up uneven... Thanks guys!

And of course Pipes did the best she could to help with digging...

A dirty dog is a happy dog - at least for this crazy pup. 

Adam helped out by getting and keeping a fire going to burn all of the branches we had laying around...

eve though Piper was a little disappointed that Adam was burning all of "her" sticks...

Careful with my Dahoon boys! Put her in nice and easy... and straight!...

After the trees were in the ground we used a hose to make an outline for the garden bed...

After we lined the garden I used an edger to create a groove in the ground which we then finished off with shovels to make the bed more defined. {I did help dig a hole too, so don't think the boys did all of the work ;)}

Unfortunately, after all of the trees had been planted, and most of the tools had been put away, I was finishing up digging the garden bed trench around the last tree when this happened....

Yup, you guessed it... that would be our internet cable. The menfolk managed to dig 9 holes, that were about 2-3 feet deep each, without hitting a single thing and I chop a cable line digging a 6 inch trench. Way to go Meg, way to go. Maybe I should've let the guys do all of the work. 

Because that ...^... led to this...

... A call to Verizon which then lead to no internet for the rest of the weekend. I'm so glad my husband is very patient with me :) He could've been upset, since he was supposed to work from home come Monday morning, which of course requires internet... but he just shrugged it off.  But of course poked fun at me for hitting something right when we were about to be completely finished with the project. 

He's a good man. :)

Ooh! I forgot about this baby Lugustrum... We are thinking about starting a hedge along this side of our side fence as well, but we are going to start with just one tree in the corner to see how it looks for now.

 And here it is! The "After" Picture of the back fence. Apparently it will take a good 3 years before they really take off "1st year they sleep, 2nd year they creep, 3rd year they leap" is what we were told. I can't wait until they are taller than the fence but I already love the landscaping appeal that they add to the back yard. Next step will be mulching the flower bed and maybe planting some flowers, although I think those 2 things probably won't happen until spring. 

While we were showering and cleaning up Mark got a phone call from his sister and her husband saying they had just gotten 2 extra free tickets to the ODU football game (Mark's alma mater) and asked if we wanted to join them. Free football? Um yes please! So we ended the day enjoying a great game of football, ODU even showed up and pulled out a win for us! Which is way more than I can say for the Redskins this season...

Day Date

If I ever start to complain, can somebody please just slap me? Okay, maybe slapping is a bit violent, maybe you could just gently remind me of days like yesterday??? I'd sure appreciate it, because I really have no right to grumble...

This fall I only have to work until noon on Fridays, (most Fridays I end up getting off at 11 really...) and Mark has every other Friday off. That means every other Friday we get to spend the afternoon together. Yesterday we soaked up every minute of our afternoon together by doing a lot of planning and dream building for our house.




After I got off work we headed out to a nearby nursery to check out some trees for our back yard. We can pretty much see right into our neighbors backyard from our deck (and they can see us) so we're looking to get some privacy hedges/trees to put in along the fence this fall. Not that we have anything against them, its just... umm.... awkward sometimes.

We're thinking about these Dahoon Holly trees...

Or "Lugustrum" hedge trees.

(I learned a lot of fancy tree names yesterday! My dad would be proud.)

After we left the nursery we stopped at one of our favorite local spots,  Bergey's Bread Basket, to get some delicious, home-made, soft serve ice cream. (That was a lot of comma's!)

They're also a farm and often have sheep, goats, ponies and cows out to pet, feed and look at. Of course I had to stop and feed this fluffy thing before going inside to get some ice cream.

Afterwards we came back home and took our pup for a walk around our neighborhood. It was a gorgeous day, in the mid 70's with just a little bit of a breeze, so we took our time walking our streets and admiring - or critiquing - houses in our neighborhood. It was all innocent fun, just thinking about things we could do to our own house, but I hope people don't pick my house apart as they walk by! I should put a sign out front that says "we're working on it." haha.

After our walk we enjoyed a quiet nap. I know I should've probably done some sort of exercise, but it sure is hard to pass up cuddling with your spouse on a Friday afternoon, those opportunities don't come around every week, ya know?

We stretched our day date out into a low key evening with dinner at local hot dog shop. (We kind of like the small little hot dog joints around here! Mmmm!) And after dinner we did some window shopping at Lowes. As a kid I never enjoyed going to the hardware store with my parents, it was super uninteresting to me; but ever since we've owned the house it has become one of my favorite places to shop. I think it's because when I buy things from there I know real, noticeable changes will be happening at home! But last night wasn't about buying anything, it was simply about dreaming...

One day we'll change the backsplash in our kitchen to one of these samples. I particularly like the one in the bottom right corner right now. 

One day we'll replace the ceiling fans through out the house with something a little more modern. This was my favorite of the group last night...

One day we'll update the light fixture in the dining room from the outdated globe to a chic hanging light. This one is a wee bit lot higher than what I'd be willing to pay for hanging light, but I thought it was super cute.

One day we'll hang up some new lighting in our kitchen and discard of the harsh florescent light. 

Speaking of kitchens... one day we'll get new appliances, especially a new fridge! But not this one. This one was about $2,900 - on sale - because it was damaged! But I still liked it. It was pretty. And it had two freezer drawers. And an ice maker. Who new you could have a "dream" refrigerator?!

And last but not least, one day we'll have new floors.

Laminate or actual hardwood? It's a toss up right now. ; )

I am just so grateful for days like yesterday. Even though it is just the two of us and we technically spend every evening/weekend together. There's just something special about setting aside "to-do" lists, and chores and busy schedules and spending quality time together.

 Spending time building dreams together.

And if thats not enough of a reminder not to complain, how could I ever be grumpy when I have this sweet Piper pup that steals all of my pillows and sleeps by my bed every night?

Do you enjoy window shopping for your house? 

What do you and your hubby enjoy doing on days you have off together? I'd love to hear about it!

DIY Memory Box

Since we've returned from our Europe adventure I've been trying to decide what to do with all of our little mementos from the trip. You know like the airport boarding passes, the tour tickets, the left over coins... all those things you normally put in a scrap book? I used to love to scrapbook, but it's a little too time consuming and creatively challenging for me these days, so when I found this pin on Pinterest, I thought it as perfect!

Here's how I completed the project and made it my own. :)

First I got my supplies - $4.99 boxes from Michael's - I bought these last week with my 50% off coupon of course

I went back to Michael's this week with some new coupons from the paper and bought my stencils and paint pens. 

I got paint samples from Lowe's in the colors I wanted. They were about $2.50 a bottle and since they match the colors of my house I can definitely use them for future projects!

I set up shop on my fire place, laying some news paper down to protect the brick. I couldn't do it anywhere else you see, because today was the first Sunday of football season! So naturally, I had to watch the games while I was working on this project. : )

After all of the boxes were painted. (Oh, hi me! Nice to see you in the reflection of the glass doors! By the way, that dated brass will one day be painted black - its a huge project so I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for it!) 

After the paint was dry I used a pencil and the stencils to outline the letters. Super helpful to use a pencil because I had to erase my lines quite a few times before I got the words centered right on the boxes. After I had them all traced I used the paint pen to fill it in. So glad I had my sister to give me the tip on the paint pens! It made this project far less messy and saved my stencils from getting yucky from paint.

I filled the boxes with our keepsakes.

And then placed them on our bookshelf! All finished! I'm actually really happy with how they turned out. They're not perfect, I mean, my letters still don't line up together even after all of the re-tracing. But I think they add a special little something to our bookcase in our family room. 

 '

Full shot of the book case. I frequently rearrange this thing because I'm never sure if I like what I have on it/how I have it on there. Hence the picture frame sitting on the couch that you can see in the bottom of the picture. I took that off to make room for the boxes! I think I'm liking the looks of the book case for now though. :)

Run Rest + last weeks workout schedule

I took a rest from my long runs this weekend for a couple of reasons. One, I have to switch my long run days from Friday mornings to Wednesday mornings because of a change in my work schedule and Two, I knew my legs needed a rest! For the past 4 weeks I've increased my mileage by 2 miles a week, 10,12,14,16.... plus I've been adding more strength training for my legs and I could just tell they were getting fatigued. I was originally planning to do a 10 miler on Saturday and then 16 miles on Wednesday but when I woke up Saturday morning my legs felt heavy and tired before I even got out of bed! I knew it wouldn't be a good run and it was about time for a step back week anyways, so I'm just saving up some energy for a good long run on Wednesday : )

Monday - Labor Day - We went canoeing on the James river with family for Labor Day. We were out there for 4 hours, so I'm counting that as my workout today.

Tuesday - P90x Legs + Ab Ripper X

Wednesday - ACL Class

Thursday - 3 mile run with the Pipes.

Friday - P90x Chest and Shoulders + 300 Abs (an Ab workout from pinterest)

Saturday - 1 Mile quick run with the Pipe's in my new shoes!!! So excited that Sports Authority had all of their Asics on sale! My regular $115 shoes were only $69.98!

(I'm not affiliated with Sports Authority in anyway.)

Sunday - Rest, but I did take the pup for a walk this afternoon, it feels good just to get outside and move, even if it's a leisurely walk.

The first part of this next week will be pretty light as I rest and body prep for Wednesday's run. Still debating on whether it will be a 16 mile or 18 miler! But I'm glad I will have my new shoes to take with me :)

Piper Jo

Hey mom, thanks for the bone!

It just, it fits so perfectly in my paws...

...and tastes like chicken...

...I love it so much!

You're the best mom in the whole world.

:)

These Hands...

Yesterday, as we were coming home from our trip, my husband casually reached over to grab my hand, as he usually does when we are in the car for an extended amount of time.  The familiar feeling of our joined hands sparked the warm fuzzy feelings that usually accompany Mark's touch. When I looked down and saw our fingers intwined I became aware of how grateful I was for this strong hand that was holding mine.

These hands that work all week to provide our house, our food, our clothes - our livelihood.

These hands that work in the evenings to fix our toilets, our walls, our leaky washing machine and our cars.

These hands that work outside to trim our trees, cut our grass, and kills the bugs I hate!

These hands that throw a ball for our pup and will one day hold our babies.

These hands that open up the scriptures and fold with mine to pray. 

I love his hands and how perfectly they fit with mine.

Oh memories of the days when these hands would "accidentally" brush mine before we were dating. Or the way they made my pulse race when he purposefully held my hand for the first time.

How is hands were trembling when he placed the ring on my finger and asked me to be his forever.. 

The way his hands held mine firmly and surely at the altar as he promised his life to me.

Is this getting too sappy? It probably is. I'm sorry, I just can't help it sometimes! It's good to just take some time and appreciate your husbands love, you know? I am so grateful the Lord saw fit to give me these hands to hold for the rest of my days and I pray that these hands are always strong for their tasks and that their touch always gives me that warm fuzzy feeling. 

16 mile run + last weeks workout schedule

Happy Labor Day!

Mark and I were gone for the weekend visiting family for the last summer holiday so I'm a little behind putting up my workout schedule from last week. I have to say I'm in like with putting my workout schedules up on the blog here, It's keeping me accountable because it makes me think, Hey! I have to be able to say I did something! So here's what last week look liked on the exercise side of things.

Monday: ACL Class

Tuesday: 3 mile run

Wednesday: ACL class

Thursday: Rest (body prep for Friday's run - included lots of water and some carbs. My favorite pre-run dinner? 2 slices of cheese pizza and a couple of plain breadsticks.)

Friday: 16 mile run! And it was SO much better than last week's 14 miler. I know I said I was going to back it down this week and try 16 miles next week, but I knew my legs were feeling better than last week since I took Thursday off to rest and I didn't want to waste a good day on a shorter run! I did take my ipod with me which helped my motivation tremendously. And I decided to do 10 miles, make a pit stop at the house to grab a quick drink and some energy chews, and then left for the last 6. It made a huge difference I think! My 10 mile time: 1:40. 13.1 mile time: 2:14:40 (1/2 marathon split time!). 16 mile time: 2:49:37

My mantra during my run on Friday!

Saturday + Sunday: Vacation! I took my running gear with me, and probably should've gone for a run, but I was enjoying family and sleep just a little too much. (Priorities right? :))