I just posted two kettle bell workouts that I did over the past week+, now it's time to talk about the rest of the workouts. I figured I would just group them all in here.
The KB workout last Monday really wrecked me the next few days, so I didn't do anything the following Tuesday or Wednesday. By Thursday (12/5), I knew I really needed to go on a run, but I also wanted to get a strength workout in before going away for the weekend. I re-used a workout from a few months ago, that I'm calling my
Cardio+Strength workout. The only thing I did differently, was that I wimped out for the strength section and only went once through the three sets. I was wiped by the time I finished up! I've included the link
here if you want to check it out. It's basically 2 miles on the treadmill (or the equivalent on a bike or elliptical machine), some strength circuits, and then 2 more miles on the treadmill. I believe I did the first 2 miles at 5.7mph (total of 21:02, or 10:31/mile), then for the second 2 miles I did 1 mile at 5.7mph, 0.5 miles at 5.8mph, 0.25 miles at 5.9mph, and the last quarter mile at 6.0mph. That was a total of ~20:45, or 10:23/mile.
This past weekend, we stayed in a cabin near Stanley, Virginia, near Shenandoah. We've stayed at a similar cabin a few times before, part of the Cozy Cove Cottages. We usually stay in the Hidden Acres cottage, but it wasn't available this time so we stayed at River View. This cabin was a lot smaller, and the cleaning staff forgot to leave us toilet paper! It was a bit cramped, since there were 6 of us, and just two small bedrooms and one main room. Joey and I got stuck without a bedroom the first night, which was okay in the sense that we were fine sleeping out in the main room, but it meant we got woken up at 7 when people decided to start coming out of their rooms, plus we didn't have a room to use for naps later in the day. The second night we got a room though, which was nice. The cabin had a hot tub, which was probably its redeeming feature.
We got there Friday night, and Joey immediately started getting food going for fajitas. We roasted onions, peppers and mushrooms, and served them with
mole sauce, salsa and cotija cheese. This was my first time trying cotija cheese and I really liked it! The weather was pretty nasty, so nobody wanted to venture out into the hot tub quite yet. We stayed up for a bit, and then went to bed, and slept in Saturday morning. Once we were up, Joey got a big batch of pancakes going. We used Alton Brown's "Instant Pancakes" recipe, and I thought they were really good. We still have half of the dry mix left, so I'll put a post about them the next time we make them (I didn't take any pictures while at the cabin). Joey also made a ton of scrambled eggs, the first people to wake up got coffee brewing, and someone else took care of bacon. We had quite a feast.
Later that day, we went on a hike nearby, on a trail called
Bird Knob. Some in our group were a little nervous about the 8 mile hike, so we took two cars. In the end, we were worried that it would get dark or start snowing before we finished, so after we got to the two vistas about 1.5 miles in, we turned around and went back. The views were amazing, so I'm really glad we did that hike. It was basically straight up to get to them, an elevation gain of close to 1200 feet. I managed to mostly keep up with the boys on our trek up, but the hike back down was more difficult. I'm always nervous going downhill, and the wet leaves covering the trail made me even more so. However, I managed to get all the way back without relying on Joey for assistance, and without falling or twisting my ankle. I call that a success!
Our original plan had been to do the hike
Strickler Knob, but considering the rain in the past few days, plus the general apprehension by some in our group, we went with the easier hike, and I'm really glad we did. Joey and I still really want to try it out, so hopefully once the weather is a bit nicer, we'll check it out. It seems similar to the somewhat famous hike
Old Rag, but since it's not as well known, it won't be nearly as crowded.
Saturday night we grilled steaks (tuna steak for me), had potatoes, and enjoyed the hot tub. It took me a while to warm up from the hike - it was so cold out! Thank goodness I brought all of my running cold gear, since that helped out. Sunday morning we woke up to the start of snow, and got on the road as soon as we could. We only had about an hour to drive, but everyone else had to get back to Pennsylvania.
This was my first week of
Joey's training plan. I'm starting out with 4 weeks of just trying to increase my weekly mileage. I'm also going to be doing my first group run this weekend.
On Tuesday (12/10) I ran 4 miles on the treadmill. Kind of boring, but I tried to mix it up a bit at the end. I did 3 miles at 5.7mph, 0.5 miles at 5.8mph, 0.25 miles at 5.9mph, and 0.25 miles at 6.0mph. Then I walked for a few minutes to cool down. I did the 4 miles in 41:45, which is an average pace of 10:27/mile.
On Wednesday (12/11) I did KB, as mentioned in my
previous post.
On Thursday (12/12) I did another 4 mile run, but outside this time. This was my first run outside since the run I did with Joey on Thanksgiving day, which seems crazy. I've done a few indoor runs, just nothing outside. It's harder to manage to do runs outside now, since it gets dark so early, and I hate running in the dark. I might look into a clip-on light, since that would make it easier for cars/bikes to see me, and for me to see my surroundings. I really wasn't feeling well before I started the run, so I decided I wasn't going to push the pace. However, once I realized 2 miles in that my pace was pretty good, I decided I wanted to keep that up. The second two miles were a lot more difficult because of that, especially since that's where the hills were. I got back feeling better than I did before I started, but then started feeling sick again. I'm glad I got the run in when I did.
Splits: (average pace, pace in last 1/2 mile)
0.50: 5:03 (10:06)
1.00: 10:01 (10:01, 9:56) last mile in 10:01
1.50: 15:04 (10:03, 10:06)
2.00: 20:05 (10:03, 10:02) last mile in 10:04
2.50: 25:20 (10:08, 10:30)
3.00: 30:23 (10:08, 10:06) last mile in 10:18
3.50: 35:27 (10:08, 10:08)
4.00: 40:15 (10:04, 9:36) last mile in 9:52
Total: 4.08 in 41:00 - 10:03/mile
If you liked this post, check out the posts below!
Workouts from the last few weeks
Cardio + Strength workout
Fantastic Weekend - The Best of Charlottesville
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